"Can There Be Peace Without Justice?" Senior Advocate Rajeev Dhavan On Ayodhya Verdict [Video]

Senior Advocate Rajeev Dhavan, who argued for the Muslim side opined that a review petition should be filed against the November 9 Judgment of the Supreme Court which allowed the Hindu parties to build the Ram Temple in the disputed Site of Ayodhya.He was speaking on the topic "The Constitution of India at 70" in an event organised by Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust at New Delhi.Excerpts From The Speech"Those stones in the Babri Masjid belong to the Muslims! The land they have given away but the stones belong to them! I am not their spokesperson, but I would tell them to take these stones and get artists to build a great monument of the injustice that has been perpetrated!""What is this judgment as we see it? It is effectively an order to destroy, a mandamus to destroy! Let's assume that in 1992 the masjid was not destroyed and it was still standing today. The title in 1992 according to the judgment would have been with the Hindus. If it was still standing, the order of the Supreme Court properly read in fact means 'destroy it and move it'!...On the 'balance of probabilities', they said between 1528 and 1857, you have no evidence to prove that you prayed there...A waqf is a waqf! If I don't pray there for a century, it doesn't cease to be a waqf! And from 1528 onwards, first the Mughals and then the Nawabs ruled there! Why on earth would there be, on a balance of probabilities, a masjid that was not prayed to when the muslims were in power? Ridiculous! They are saying Hindus had complete access to the whole site and at least the outer courtyard. How is it possible? In order to reach the inner courtyard, where the Muslims used to go, you have to cross the outer courtyard! The choice is very simple- the mosque was there! It is a walled mosque! It was owned by the muslims! An 1885 judgment says that as far as the Hindu right is concerned, they cannot build a temple there! All that the Hindus had was a prescriptive right of prayer!...They reversed it! They said the Hindus owned this walled mosque! Why? Because some gentleman said he had heard they prayed there before 1857? I was asked this menacing question by Justice Chandrachud...the sheer ridiculousness of this argument is there to be seen on the surface of the judgment only!""Why do I want a review filed? A review is the way in which the people who were before the court will state their problems with the judgment. It is the only authoritative way in which the Muslim community can tell the court, not the media but the Muslim community, that this is wrong with the judgment!...This controversy must come to an end. If the Sunni Waqf Board, under pressure, doesn't want to file a review, let them not! M. Siddiqui's the lead, he is from the Jamaat, he will file it. So will the others...the people of India have the right to know that this is why they say the judgment is wrong! It will be an authoritative statement on record, not on a TV programme or in a newspaper, but on record!" "Why don't people want a review to be filed? For peace! Can there be peace without justice?...Why do you want the 5 acres? People say it is a symbolic gesture. Who wants that site? I don't want the birthright taken away from me! Don't take the site! But unfortunately, it is in hands of the Sunni Waqf Board because the court has said you take the site...There is still something to be done about the Babri Masjid case. This something is that which reflects on our secular mandate"On the retrieval of the Constitution"There are two sets of texts in the Constitution- the political texts, on elections, the Parliament and which go up to the Cabinet. The custodianship of which goes to our political rulers. And the second, I call them the justice texts, the rule of law texts. They are, I would like to believe, in the custodianship of all of us. But their ultimate custodianship is with the Supreme Court. Has the Supreme Court failed us? Unfortunately, again and again and again! What did they do to the CBI, the famous caged parrot? They knew they've done something wrong. So what did Justice Gogoi do? He said I am sending Justice Sikri and you are going to appoint somebody else! What happened in all the activist cases that went before the court? What happened in Arunachal? What happened in the simplest of the simplest matters? What about corruption? I think there is a political corruption, under the Prevention of Corruption Act, every time a defection takes place. You doing something contrary to the law and are inducing somebody for the benefit of somebody, which either 420 or 416 of the IPC!""There has been a total takeover of the political texts! The justice texts have been tweaked and tweaked and tweaked!...Democracy doesn't stop at an election, it begins after the election! If we think the political texts of the Constitution are exhausted in an election, then the very concept of the democracy disappears! We have seen the pressure on the media, the activists, on lawyers, on Muslims, and across the...

"Can There Be Peace Without Justice?" Senior Advocate Rajeev Dhavan On Ayodhya Verdict [Video]

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