The Supreme Court constituted three-member mediation committee, tasked with exploring the possibility of an amicable settlement in the decades-old, politically sensitive, Ayodhya’s Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid land dispute case, has submitted its interim report in a sealed cover.
Sources aware of the development said the interim report wasfiled with the apex court Registry on May 6, and the matter has been listed forhearing on Friday.
The apex court on March 8 had referred the matter tomediation for exploring the possibility of an amicable settlement.
It had appointed former apex court judge F M I Kalifulla,spiritual guru and founder of Art of Living foundation Sri Sri Ravishankar andsenior advocate Sriram Panchu, a renowned mediator, as members of the mediationcommittee.
A five-judge Constitution bench comprising Chief justiceRanjan Gogoi and Justices S A Bobde, D Y Chandrachud, Ashok Bhushan and S AbdulNazeer will now peruse the report and decide the future course of action.
The matter will come up for the first time on Friday sincethe March 8 order of the top court. It had said that the mediation processwould commence within a week and the panel would submit the progress reportwithin four weeks.
The panel was asked by the apex court to hold in-cameraproceedings and complete them within eight weeks.
The Constitution bench had said that it does not find any”legal impediment” to make a reference to mediation for a possiblesettlement of the dispute.
The top court had directed that the mediation proceedingsshould be conducted with “utmost confidentiality” for ensuring itssuccess and the views expressed by any of the parties including the mediatorsshould be kept confidential and not be revealed to any other person.
However, it had refrained from passing any specific restrainorder at this stage and instead empowered the mediators to pass necessaryorders in writing, if so required, to restrain publication of the details ofthe mediation proceedings.The top court had fixed the seat for mediationprocess in Faizabad of Uttar Pradesh, around 7 km from Ayodhya, and said thatthe adequate arrangements including the venue of the mediation, place of stayof the mediators, their security, travel should be forthwith arranged by thestate government so that proceedings could commence immediately.