Supreme Court to test validity of two provisions of 1991 law on religious places

The Supreme Court would primarily test the constitutional validity of two provisions of the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991 which was brought by the PV Narasimha Rao-led government to freeze the status of religious places as on August 15, 1947.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court would primarily test the constitutional validity of two provisions of the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991 which was brought by the PV Narasimha Rao-led government to freeze the status of religious places as on August 15, 1947.

Earlier in the day, the Supreme Court restrained all the courts in the country from entertaining and passing any effective interim or final orders on any lawsuits seeking reliefs including survey of religious places under the 1991 law.

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The direction of a bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justices Sanjay Kumar and K V Viswanathan came on a batch of pleas and cross pleas relating to the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991.
Several petitions in the top court has challenged the validity of Section 3 and 4 of the Act.

Section 2 deals with the ‘Bar of conversion of places of worship’. “No person shall convert any place of worship of any religious denomination or any section thereof into a place of worship of a different section of the same religious denomination or of a different religious denomination or any section thereof,” reads Section 2.

Section 4 of the Act is titled ‘Declaration as to the religious character of certain places of worship and bar of jurisdiction of courts, etc’. “(1) It is hereby declared that the religious character of a place of worship existing on the 15th day of August, 1947 shall continue to be the same as it existed on that day,” reads the first sub-section of the provision.

“If, on the commencement of this Act, any suit, appeal or other proceeding with respect to the conversion of the religious character of any place of worship, existing on the 15th day of August, 1947, is pending before any court, tribunal or other authority, the same shall abate, and no suit, appeal or other proceeding with respect to any such matter shall lie on or after such commencement in any court, tribunal or other authority,” it adds.