Places of Worship Act: Supreme Court gives further extension to Centre for its response

A bench of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justice P S Narasimha gave the Centre time till the end of February to submit its response to the petitions

PGurus Newsdesk

January 10, 2023

A bench of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justice P S Narasimha gave the Centre time till the end of February to submit its response to the petitions

Centre gets further extension to file its response till the end of February 2023

On Monday the Supreme Court further extended the time for the Central government to file its response on a batch of petitions challenging the validity of certain provisions of the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the Centre, submitted before a bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud that consultation is going on and the government will file the reply before the hearing begins while seeking more time to file a reply on the petitions.

“My lords, kindly fix a date. We may file it before then,” he said.

The bench, also comprising Justice P S Narasimha, decided to give the Centre time until the end of February 2023 to file its response and added that it would list the matter on a non-miscellaneous day.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal submitted that a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court had upheld the Act in the Ayodhya judgment and hence, the PILs are not maintainable. Senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, representing one of the petitioners, however, said that the challenge is made against the legislation and not against any observation in the judgment.

The bench, in the order, recorded that Sibal sought to raise certain objections in connection with the maintainability of the petitions and added that such preliminary objections would be considered at the stage of hearing.

On November 14 last year, the Supreme Court granted time to the Central government till December 12 to file a comprehensive affidavit on petitions challenging the validity of certain provisions of the Act.

On October 21, the bench directed the Centre to file an affidavit on or before October 31. It had listed the matter for further hearing on November 14.

On March 12, 2021, a bench headed by then Chief Justice S A Bobde sought the Centre’s response to the plea filed by advocate Ashwini Upadhyay, one of the petitioners in the matter, challenging the validity of certain provisions of the law.

[With Inputs from IANS]

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