The message of the Ayodhya verdict is clear: It is meant to unite and not divide communities. The out-of-the-box judgement has upheld faith in the light of fact and cold logic while muting the dispute's religious overtones
Wouldn't it be splendid if the warring parties in the Ayodhya dispute accepted the Allahabad High Court judgement and moved ahead — may be with some mutual agreements additionally in place? That, perhaps, may have been the idea the three judges had in mind when they parceled out the disputed land in equal proportion to the three litigants in the title claim. Unfortunately, the verdict is being shred to pieces using conventional tools of analysis, and those doing so are failing to appreciate the fact that the Justices Sudhir Agarwal, Dharam Veer Sharma and SU Khan have demonstrated a courage rarely seen in Indian judiciary while tackling cases with strong religious overtones. In such matters, the reactions of the people and their political representatives are an accurate indication of the extent to which the verdict has been accepted. On that count alone, the three judges have received a general endorsement because the ruling is seen as one that seeks to unite rather than divide the communities over the dispute.
There are at least three good reasons why the verdict deserves praise. One, that it has come at all, thus shortening if not ending the legal journey of the case; two, it is an out-of-the-box ruling that is as much a practical solution as a legal order; and three, it underlines the importance of faith and belief as a legal factor in deciding issues. Many critics of the judgement drawn from civil society have pounced upon this last factor to press home the point that the ruling is fit to be trashed. How can the judiciary, they say seething with anger, allow itself to be led by matters of faith? The judges, they pronounce with righteous indignation, should have limited themselves to tangible matters of law. Hearing them, one would be led to believe that the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court did not take into consideration any scientific evidence, but merely relied on faith as the deciding factor.
In any case, these are objections of afterthought. The opponents appear to have forgotten that all the parties to the dispute have religious connotation. The Sri Ram Virajman, the Nirmohi Akhara and the Sunni Central Board of Waqfs are all driven by religious agendas, and what they placed before the judges of the Allahabad High Court was as much a matter of faith as of legality regarding possession of land. Again, the critics have missed the point that one of the parties to the case — the Sri Ram Virajman — is a deity, and that a deity in our country has a legal status?
The deity is a matter of faith and belief; some consider it in a form or shape while others relate to it as a formless entity. So, what is the big deal if the court has considered faith as one of the factors in its path-breaking judgement and given a symbol of faith a legal recognition? Remember, that a prominent Muslim leader commented on a television channel that steps to address the issue arising out of the ruling would be taken keeping in mind the sharia'h framework — again one that is driven by a particular religion. One cannot escape the role of faith in such disputes, and any approach that ignores the reality would fail to truly address the issue.
The country's apex court best understood this reality when it accorded a legal status — albeit that of a Minor — to a religious deity. We can to a great extent thank the West for that. According to Common Law, which forms the basis for several Western legal systems and which we have in many ways followed since British rule, there are two persons: Natural and Legal. Natural persons are human beings, while Legal (juristic) persons are any beings or things or objects that are treated as persons by law. For legal purposes, they are given treatment similar to that accorded to human beings. Thus, for instance, the deity Ram is a 'juristic person' in the eyes of the law, and that is how got represented in the Allahabad High Court as Sri Ram Virajman.
The question of whether a Hindu Deity can be a juristic person or not was decided by a Privy Council in the case Vidya Varuthi Thirthia Swamigal Vs Baluswami Ayyar, AIR 1922. It was ruled then, that "Under the Hindu law, the image of a deity of the Hindu pantheon is, as has been aptly called, a 'juristic entity', vested with the capacity of receiving gifts and holding property".
A similar conclusion was reached by Lord Moulton in the Privy Council decision in Ambalavana Pandara Sannidhi Vs Meenakshi Sundareswaral Devastanam case, where the judge pointed out that the general trustee was only a representative of the idol who is a juridical personage, and the true owner.
It must be kept in mind that Common Law concept is based on a series of judgements that courts or tribunals deliver, rather than on statutes laid down by legislations. It comes in handy in cases like the present one where the issues to be addressed go beyond conventional legal doctrine.
Yet again, in another similar judgement much later in 1981, the Supreme Court in Radha Kanta Deb Vs Commissioner Of Hindu Religious Endowments case ruled that a Hindu idol was recognised as a 'juristic person'. The verdict came after the apex court heard to decide an appeal whether the appellant-temple was a public endowment or a family deity that the appellant claimed it to be.
Significantly, whether the title of a 'juristic person' can be accorded to a religious monument like it is given to a deity, on matters of faith, was elaborated by a court while rejecting in 1935 the claim of a mosque to be recognised as a juristic person. The dispute, located in Lahore, was between the Sikhs and the Muslims and involved control over land where a mosque and a gurduwara stood side by side. When the case of the Muslims fell on the issue of adverse possession, the Sikhs reportedly demolished the mosque. The aggrieved party then approached the court in the name of the mosque, which it claimed was a juristic person. But the Privy Council rejected the claim saying there was no analogy between a mosque and a Hindu deity.
This of course is not surprising, since nothing in Islamic tenets can be identified to a form or person. Interestingly, the Allahabad High Court has ruled that not just the deity but also the Ram Janmasthan is a 'juristic person'. If this appears contrary to the Privy Council verdict, it is because Hinduism recognises idol worship while the mosque cannot be similarly 'personified'.
Finally, if the critics look beyond their so-called secular vision, they will find that the Allahabad High Court ruling is a pragmatic one and easily implementable, unlike the many high-sounding but entirely unworkable solutions that they have been offering as their contribution to communal harmony in the country. It is driven by a concern to be fair to all: Although the court dismissed the title suits of both the Sunni Waqf Board and the Nirmohi Akhara because they were time-barred, it gave one-third of the disputed land each to them — neither less nor more than what Sri Ram Virajman got. In other words, all the three parties have become joint holders of the disputed land, and can work out the minor details of appropriation among themselves. Sadly, that does not seem to be happening. What is likely to happen is the matter reaching the Supreme Court — with more parties getting enrolled in the legal dispute to make it even more complicated.
Remember that things could have been bad had the court shut out the Waqf Board completely after dismissing its title claim, or if it had handed over to the Board the land where the makeshift temple now exists. Sometimes, midway solutions are best — and they should be given a chance to succeed.
