A plea by SP leader Choudhary for the effective implementation of the 1991 Places of Worship Act was tagged with similar petitions by the Supreme Court, as Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar deliberated on the growing influx of related cases this Friday. The 1991 Act, pivotal in maintaining the religious character of places of worship as they were on August 15, 1947, has recently seen a surge in challenges, particularly involving disputes over Muslim places of worship.
The Act, which explicitly excludes the Ayodhya site, has been the basis of several legal challenges since the first major petition in 2020. The Supreme Court’s engagement has intensified, with notices issued to the Union government and multiple interventions aimed at preserving the law’s integrity against communal disruptions.
In her petition, Choudhary highlighted concerns that repeated legal challenges, especially those ordering judicial surveys of Muslim sites, could deepen communal tensions and fray India’s secular fabric. Her plea calls for a judicial directive to prevent courts from accepting cases that aim to change the character of religious sites and seeks restraint on orders in existing cases.
This comes in the backdrop of recent violent clashes in Uttar Pradesh following a trial court’s survey order of the 16th-century Jama Masjid in Sambhal, which resulted in five deaths. The Supreme Court, recognizing the potential for such disputes to cause significant communal unrest, issued a prohibition in December against trial courts from making any directives, including survey orders, in pending disputes concerning the religious character of places of worship. Additionally, the Court has halted the registration of new cases on this issue pending further judgment on the Act’s constitutionality.
Choudhary’s petition also addresses discrepancies in the definition of “ancient monuments” under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1958, arguing that not all places of worship are automatically recognized as ancient monuments unless specified under the Act.
