The Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered closure of all petitions related to the 2002 Gujarat riots as well as contempt petitions against former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister the late Kalyan Singh and others for the demolition of Babri Masjid.
Citing the 2019 Ayodhya judgment, the Bench comprising Justices SK Kaul, AS Oka and Vikram Nath said the issue of the masjid’s demolition in 1992 did not survive now. The contempt plea was pending for a long time and the petitioner had died in 2010.
“I appreciate the fact that the matter ought to have come up earlier,” Justice Kaul said. The counsel appearing for the petitioner said the order passed by the apex court in 1992 was violated and after that the contempt petition was filed. He said nearly 30 years have gone by and the petitioner had filed several applications for listing of the matter.
“I appreciate your concern. But, now nothing survives in this matter,” Justice Kaul observed, adding, “You cannot keep whipping a dead horse.”
The Bench said it was unfortunate that the matter was not taken up. “We are making an endeavour to take up old matters. Some may survive, and some may not survive…. Now, you have a full verdict delivered by a larger Bench,” it said.
The Bench noted in its order that the petitioner has passed away and the issue has been settled by a Constitution Bench in November 2019.
Closing 11 petitions related to the 2002 Gujarat riots, the apex court said the cases had become “infructuous”, including the one filed by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), almost 20 years ago.
Besides the NHRC, organisations like ‘Citizens for Justice and Peace’ (CJP) of activist Teesta Setalvad, had then moved the top court seeking various reliefs, including a court-monitored probe of the riots.