The Allahabad High Court judgement dismissing a PIL asking for the removal of the Shahi Idgah in Mathura is a relief, even though it is on the technical ground that similar petitions are pending before it. Given the Supreme Court’s willingness to entertain an archaeological survey of the Gyan Vapi Mosque in Benaras and a challenge to the Places of Worship Act 1991, both the Gyan Vapi mosque and Shahi Idgah may go the way of the Babri Masjid. The template is set– a local dispute elevated to a national issue, a self-appointed next friend of the idol, a court mandated archaeological survey, and a judiciary which values faiths differentially.
When Chief Justice Chandrachud argued that ascertaining the religious character of a place was not barred under the Places of Worship Act, and agreed to examine the Act itself, he reneged directly on a commitment the Supreme Court had made barely a few years ago. In an otherwise disappointing judgement, handing over the site of the Babri Masjid to the very people who vandalised it, a five-judge bench of the Court reiterated the importance of the Places of Worship Act of 1991:
In providing a guarantee for the preservation of the religious character of places of public worship as they existed on 15 August 1947 and against the conversion of places of public worship, Parliament determined that independence from colonial rule furnishes a constitutional basis for healing the injustices of the past by providing the confidence to every religious community that their places of worship will be preserved and that their character will not be altered. The law addresses itself to the State as much as to every citizen of the nation. Its norms bind those who govern the affairs of the nation at every level. Those norms implement the Fundamental Duties under Article 51A and are hence positive mandates to every citizen as well. The State, has by enacting the law, enforced a constitutional commitment and operationalized its constitutional obligations to uphold the equality of all religions and secularism which is a part of the basic features of the Constitution. The Places of Worship Act imposes a non-derogable obligation towards enforcing our commitment to secularism under the Indian Constitution. The law is hence a legislative instrument designed to protect the secular features of the Indian polity, which is one of the basic features of the Constitution. Non-retrogression is a foundational feature of the fundamental constitutional principles of which secularism is a core component. The Places of Worship Act is thus a legislative intervention which preserves non-retrogression as an essential feature of our secular values (para 82 of the 2019 Ayodhya judgement, M Siddiq (D) v. Mahant Suresh Das and ors, emphasis mine)
