The Supreme Court on September 10th, 2018 sought a report from a sessions judge in a Lucknow court on how he intends to complete the trial in the Babri Masjid demolition case within the April 2019 deadline.
A bench of Justices R F Nariman and Indu Malhotra also sought the Uttar Pradesh government's response on a plea of trial court judge S K Yadav, whose promotion was stayed by the Allahabad High Court on the ground that the apex court had directed him to complete the trial.
Earlier, on April 19, 2017, the apex court had said that the BJP veterans involved in the case, namely, L K Advani, M M Joshi, and Uma Bharti would be prosecuted for serious offence of criminal conspiracy in the politically-sensitive 1992 Babri Masjid demolition case and had ordered day-to-day trial to be concluded in two years, that is April 19, 2019.
The apex court calling the demolition of the medieval era monument a "crime" that had shaken the "secular fabric of the Constitution" had allowed the CBI's plea on restoration of criminal conspiracy charge against the VVIP accused and said that "there shall be no de novo (fresh) trial. There shall be no transfer of the Judge conducting the trial until the entire trial concludes. The case shall not be adjourned on any ground except when the sessions court finds it impossible to carry on the trial for that particular date.”
There were two sets of cases relating to the demolition of the Babri Masjid. The first involved unnamed 'karsevaks', the trial of which is taking place in a Lucknow court, while the second set of cases relate to the leaders in a Rae Bareli court. The apex court had ordered clubbing of the separate trials and ordered one single trial to be conducted in Lucknow.
The conspiracy charge against 13 accused including Advani, Joshi and Bharti was dropped in the case, thereafter, appeals were filed by one Haji Mahboob Ahmad (since dead) and the CBI against dropping of conspiracy charges against 21 accused including the top BJP leaders, eight of whom have died.
