On the 8th of February, the Allahabad High Court (HC) dismissed a writ petition filed by two Delhi based sisters claiming ownership of the Ayodhya land allocated for the mosque construction.

The two sisters claimed the ownership of the five acre land allotted to the Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board. The land was given to the board as a replacement of the original Ram Janmabhoomi land, for the construction of a mosque in Ayodhya.

The decision was taken by the Supreme Court in 2019, which resolved the years long dispute of the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid case.

The sisters identified as Rani Kapoor and Rani Rama Rani Punjabi, in their writ petition said their father Gyan Chandra Punjabi came to India during partition in 1947 from Punjab and settled in Faizabad (now Ayodhya) district. They said, their father was allotted 28 acres of land in the Dhannipur village by the Nazul Department for five years which he continued to possess beyond that period. Later, his name was included in the revenue records also.

However, his name was struck down from the records after which their father filed an appeal before the Additional Commissioner, Ayodhya. The petitioners further claimed that the consolidation officer again removed their father’s name from the records during the consolidation proceedings. To oppose the same, their father filed an appeal before the Settlement Officer of Consolidation, Sadar in Ayodhya.

However, without considering the said petition and concluding the filed appeal, the SC allotted five acres of their 28 acre land to the Sunni Waqf Board. The two sisters now demanded to restrain their orders of transferring the 5 acres of land until the dispute over the 28 acre land is before the settlement officer.

The Court heard the petition and granted liberty to move a fresh petition with appropriate pleadings.

The arguments were presented by Additional Advocate General Ramesh Kumar Singh, who was representing the State and H.G.S. Parihar was representing the petitioners.

During the hearing, Mr. Kumar opposed the plea, saying the plot numbers allotted for the mosque were different from those mentioned in the petition. He also said the petition was filed without ascertaining facts in such an important issue and as such it is liable to be dismissed forthwith.

However, senior lawyer H.G.S. Parihar, realised his mistake and requested the court to allow him to withdraw the petition with the liberty to file a fresh one with appropriate pleadings.

Justice D.K. Upadhyay and Justice Manish Kumar expressed concerns over the filing of the petition in a hurry with inaccurate facts and granted them permission to file a fresh petition.

Accepting the plea, the bench dismissed the petition. The next hearing of the case would be decided after a fresh petition filing.

Stay tuned for further updates.

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