Thursday, 01 October 2020 | Biswajeet Banerjee | Lucknow
Court blames the antisocial for demolition but says it’s not premeditated; says Advani, Joshi tried to convince mob against razing it
A special CBI court has acquitted all 32 accused in the Babri Masjid demolition case, including former Deputy Prime Minister LK Advani, for lack of evidence saying that the demolition was not pre-planned and blamed anti-social elements for razing of the disputed mosque in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992.
“The CBI had not been able to establish charges against the accused. There is evidence to show that the accused had tried to pacify the crowd, not to pull down the Babri mosque,” the Special Judge CBI SK Yadav said in his judgment here on Wednesday.
The court observed that the incident was not pre-planned and the accused had tried to persuade the mob against demolishing the structure. The court even mentioned former VHP president Ashok Singhal saying he tried his best to persuade the people who were behind the demolition.
“The leaders who were present at the site during the demolition were trying to stop the mob and not incite them. Stone pelting started from behind the disputed structure. RSS and VHP did not have a role in demolition”, the Judge said, adding that Kar Sevaks who are blamed for demolition were directed to bring water and flowers to keep both their hands occupied.
The judge even mentioned the witness number 9 Ms Anju Gupta, a former police officer, produced by the CBI, who during her statement had admitted that several criminals and dacoits had been among the Kar Sevaks.
“The prosecution could not prove the link between the accused and the antisocial elements involved in razing the Babri mosque,” the court said.
The Special Judge said that there was not a single evidence against any accused of instigating the crowd and rejected all the 350 evidence produced by the CBI against the 49 accused, of which 17 have died, under Section 351 of the CrPC.
Special Judge Yadav, who demits his office day after today, read out his exhaustive judgment in the presence of all the 32 accused, of which 26 were present physically.
“As there was no concrete evidence, hence all the accused have been acquitted,” the Judge said.
Lawyer IB Singh who was present inside the court said that the judge said that the CBI has failed to provide evidence that these accused were part of any conspiracy. “The legal evidence was lacking. CBI produced photographs but could not produce negatives. Even newspaper cuttings were not in order. The CBI didn’t produce the actual notes of reporters,” Singh said quoting the judge.
After the Judge pronounced the verdict, the courtroom reverberated with the chants of “Jai Shree Ram” as the accused congratulated each other.
The verdict is of 2,300 pages which has the record of 351 witnesses and over 600 documents as evidence provided by the CBI.
Twenty-six of the 32 accused were present in the court while former Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani, Dr Murli Manohar Joshi, Uma Bharati, Kalyan Singh, Mahant Nritya Gopal Das and Satish Pradhan attended the court proceedings virtually.
The accused who were present in the court were Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, Sakshi Maharaj, Lallu Singh (all MPs), Pawan Pandey, RN Srivastava, Ram Vilas Vedanti, Champat Rai, Mahant Dharam Das, Vinay Katiyar, Sadhvi Ritambhara, Prakash Sharma, Vijay Bahadur Singh, Santosh Dubey, Gandhi Yadav, Ramji Gupta, Kamlesh Tripathi, Ram Charan Khatri, Jai Bhagwan Goel, Om Prakash Pandey, Amarnath Goel, Jai Bhan Pawaiya, Vijay Kumar Rai, Naveen Bhai Shukla, Acharya Dharmendra Deo, Sudhir Kumar Kakkar and Dharmendra Singh Gujjar.
The accused who have died during the trial period are Acharya Giriraj Kishore, Ashok Singhal , Vishnu Hari Dalmia, Baikunth Lal Sharma, Bal Thakre , Mahant Avaidhnath, Vinod Kumar Bass, Ram Narain Das, Hari Govind Singh, Laxm Narain Das, Ramesh Pratap Singh, Devendra Bahadur Rai, Moreshwar Sabe, Mahamandeleshwar Jagdish Muni Ramchandra Das Parahamans and Satish Nagar.
