How far will a court judgement go in triggering a riot? The recent example of an order passed by civil judge Aditya Singh in Sambhal on 19 November 2024 should be illustrative.
Singh was hearing a petition filed by Hindutva cheerleaders, who demanded they be allowed to conduct a survey of the Shahi Jama Masjid, an ASI (Archaeological Survey of India)-protected monument, which they claimed was built in the 16th century by the Mughal emperor Babar after pulling down a Shiv temple.
The petition was filed on the afternoon of 19 November. Without even hearing a representation from the Muslim side, the judge passed an order that the survey be carried out by an advocate commissioner that very same evening. This was done without any ado.
A court decision even before the other party has been heard is a first. No coincidence that voting was due the next day (20 November) for nine assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh, after completion of the first stage of the survey. Nobody is surprised any more by the metronomic consistency of these communal dog whistles, and Yogi Adityanath has been a mascot and flagbearer of the tradition, but a court decision that doesn’t even bother with the pretence of a fair hearing is a new low in our public life.
The ‘survey’ could obviously not be completed by the evening of 19 November, and so the surveyors returned to the Sambhal Jama Masjid on 24 November (a day after the UP assembly results had been declared) where members of the Muslim community, upset that the court had not even heard their side, had gathered in large numbers. Clashes broke out between protestors and the police, leading to the death of five Muslim youth.
Contrast this with the judgement by a division bench of acting chief justice Manoj Kumar Tewari and justice Rakesh Thapliyal of the Nainital High Court, who in response to a demand to demolish a 55-year-old mosque built on private property in Uttarkashi, ordered the........