(Bloomberg) -- India’s Supreme Court today started hearing final arguments by religious groups over ownership of land in the northern city of Ayodhya where the razing of a 16th-century mosque in 1992 had triggered religious riots.
Over a dozen individuals and groups have challenged a lower court’s judgment that divided the disputed 2.77 acre property between Muslim and Hindu groups. In 2011 the Supreme Court suspended a 2010 Allahabad High Court ruling that ordered a split which would have given a Muslim group one-third of the land and Hindu groups two-thirds.
Hindu groups have said the mosque was built over the ruins of a temple that marked the birthplace of their god, Lord Ram.
On Wednesday a thee-judge panel headed by Chief Justice of India, Dipak Misra, rejected intervention pleas by religious groups and individuals, including politicians, saying it will treat the case as a "pure land dispute".
The panel said it will decide whether a constitution bench of the apex court first needs to decide if mosque is an integral part of Islam. A petitioner has claimed that an earlier top court ruling on the question could prejudice his rights over the land.
Election Promises
In March last year, Yogi Adityanath, a strong supporter of building a Hindu temple at the disputed site, became chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, raising expectations that the process of making a Hindu shrine would be fast-tracked. The BJP, which won a majority in the state assembly elections, has listed the temple among other promises in its election manifesto.
The destruction of the Babri Masjid mosque sparked riots that killed 2,000 people, mostly Muslims, and marked the emergence of the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party as a force in national politics in the 1990s.
The court will resume hearings on March 23.
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