The Centre on Friday told the Supreme Court that within four weeks it will provide details about basic amenities to be made available for pilgrims visiting the “Ram Janam Bhoomi-Babri Masjid” disputed site at Ayodhya. The bench headed by Justice Anil R Dave gave Centre four weeks to respond and posted the matter on May 1, the next date of hearing. The order came on an application by BJP leader Subramanian Swamy who demanded basic minimum facilities to be provided to pilgrims near the disputed site. These included amenities of drinking water and toilets.
Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Maninder Singh who appeared for Centre submitted that the Centre required some time to respond to Swamy’s application. The Court allowed Swamy to forward his suggestions to the Centre based on which the response can be filed. Swamy argued that devotees of lord Rama, desiring to visit Ayodhya faced tremendous difficulty as neither the Centre nor the Uttar Pradesh Government provided any basic facilities. He had approached the apex court owing to the status quo order passed by the apex court in 1996 prohibiting building of any structure at the disputed site.
His application sought to “ameliorate the lot of millions of Hindu pilgrims who make the pilgrimage to the site of the ‘Ram Janam Bhoomi’ at Ayodhya, to have a ‘darshan’ and perform ‘pooja’ in honour of ‘Sri Ram lalla Virajman’.”