The Hindu : No need for special court on Ayodhya: Mayawati

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Sep 18, 2002

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No need for special court on Ayodhya: Mayawati

By J.P. Shukla

LUCKNOW SEPT. 17. The Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Mayawati, today castigated her political adversaries for creating "unnecessary noise'' over issuing a fresh notification in the Babri Masjid demolition case on the ground that this was necessary to prosecute the Bharatiya Janata Party and Vishwa Hindu Parishad leaders who have since been discharged following an Allahabad High Court judgment.

The State Government has taken the stand that the trial of the BJP and VHP leaders, including the Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, and the Union Minister for Human Resource Development, Murli Manohar Joshi, could continue even without a fresh notification being issued.

This trial could take place either in a competent court in Faizabad or the special court constituted at Rae Bareli by the then State Government during the Governorship of Motilal Vora. The Government did not feel the necessity for issuing a fresh notification for the trial of the accused in the special court in Lucknow. Talking to newspersons here after the State Government made its stand known on the issue in the Supreme Court during the day, Ms. Mayawati said the Government had deliberated on the legal aspects in great detail and arrived at the conclusion that there was neither the necessity nor propriety for constituting a special court for trial of the accused.

"I want to make it clear that there exists rule of law in my Government and I am not in favour of constituting a special court for the prosecution of anyone, no matter how big or small he is,'' she said.

She accused both the Congress and the Samajwadi Party of fomenting the Ayodhya issue for their "selfish political interests". While the Congress was responsible for opening the locks of the disputed shrine in 1986 and allowing the "Shilanyas'' for the proposed Ram temple in 1989, the Sp leader, Mulayam Singh Yadav, "incited communal feelings" to garner the votes of Muslims who had been annoyed with the Congress action. The BJP had come to fish in the troubled waters only later.

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