The Hindu : ASI ordered to take up excavation at disputed site

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Mar 06, 2003

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ASI ordered to take up excavation at disputed site

Lucknow March 5 . In a major development in the Ayodhya case, the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court today ordered the Archaeological Survey of India to undertake excavation at the disputed site within a week and complete the process within a month to ascertain whether a temple existed at the place where the Babri Masjid was built.

A three-judge bench hearing the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid title suit, asked the ASI to start the excavation work within a week from today and apprise it of the progress on March 24.

The court order came a day before the crucial hearing in the Supreme Court on whether the undisputed land should be handed back to its "rightful owners" after making provision for access to the disputed area.

The Bench, comprising Justice Bhanwar Singh, Justice S.R. Alam and Justice Sudhir Narain, also directed the ASI to submit the report to the court within a week of completion of the excavation process.

The court said the excavation should be carried out without disturbing the makeshift Ram temple where the idol of Ram Lalla has been installed.

The excavation should spare the area measuring about 10 feet of the `chabutra' (platform) where the idol of Ram Lalla is placed, the order said.

The court also said the devotees' right to have darshan at the makeshift temple should not be disturbed and the status quo should be maintained.

It directed the ASI to employ experts for the job on top-most priority and, if need be, shift them for the purpose if they are engaged in some other work. The Union Government should hire other experts if there was a dearth of the same in the ASI, the court ruled.

It asked New Delhi-based Canadian company Tojo India Vikas International, which had carried out a detailed study of the site using radars, to assist the ASI in excavation.

In a related development, a special court here allowed the CBI's plea for sending papers relating to the FIR registered against eight accused persons, including the Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, and the Union Human Resource Development Minister, Murli Manohar Joshi, in connection with the Babri mosque demolition case, to the special court in Raebareli, paving the way for their trial there.

The Special Judge, Seth Shailendra Nath Tandon, passed the order on the CBI's plea seeking transfer of papers relating to crime number 198/92 in which Mr. Advani, Dr. Joshi and six others were named as accused in the demolition case so that the prosecution proceedings against them could begin in the Raebareli court. — PTI

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