The Supreme Court is scheduled to pronounce a judgment Thursday on whether to refer the question if a “mosque as a place of prayer is an essential part of Islam” to a larger Constitution bench.

A three-judge Bench of Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra and Justices Ashok Bhushan and S. Abdul Nazeer will pronounce the verdict.

In a 1994 judgment of the Supreme Court, the Ismail Farooqui case observed that a mosque is not an essential part of the practice of the religion of Islam and namaz can be offered anywhere.