New Delhi

The CBI Special Judge trying BJP stalwarts LK Advani, MM Joshi and others in the Babri Masjid demolition case has moved the Supreme Court complaining that his promotion has been stayed by the Allahabad High Court in view of a top court order to complete the trial by April 19, 2019.
Lucknow Special Judge SK Yadav is trying the case in terms of the top court’s April 19, 2017, order for a day-to-day trial to be concluded in two years. Senior BJP leader and Union Minister Uma Bharti is also an accused in the case.

On Monday, a Bench headed by Justice Rohinton F Nariman asked justice Yadav to file a report in a sealed cover explaining how he planned to complete the trial in the politically sensitive case within the deadline. The Bench, which also comprised Justice Indu Malhotra, also asked the UP Government to respond to Yadav’s petition.

While ordering the BJP stalwarts to face trial, the SC had on April 19, 2017, termed the demolition of the disputed structure a “crime” that shook the “secular fabric of the Constitution”. It had allowed the CBI’s plea to revive criminal conspiracy charge against the accused. “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,” it had said.

There were two sets of cases relating to the demolition of the disputed structure on December 6, 1992. 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. It had ordered clubbing of the separate trials in the trial courts of Rae Bareli and Lucknow should be clubbed, to be conducted in Lucknow.