The Supreme Court on Friday sought details from the Registrar of the Allahabad High Court about the civil suits filed in respect of the Sri Krishna Janmabhoomi-Shahi Idgah dispute at Mathura, which were sought to be consolidated and transferred to the High Court from the trial court.
A bench comprising Justice SK Kaul and Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia was hearing a plea challenging the order passed by the Allahabad High Court on May 26 to transfer all pending suits related to the Sri Krishna Janmabhoomi-Shahi Idgah dispute from the Mathura Court to itself.
During the short hearing today, the bench asked if it would not be better if the High Court decides the matter.
“Looking to the nature of the matter, is it not better that the High Court tries the matter? Thinking aloud, if it is tried at a higher level…pendency of matter causes its own disquiet, one side or the other”, Justice Kaul observed.
Noting that multiple suits have been filed on the issue, Justice Kaul said, “Multiplicity of proceedings and prolongation are not in the interest of anybody. The objective as we see it is to ensure that further proceedings are not filed in the present matter. It is in the larger interest of everybody that the matter is decided at a higher level”.
Advocate Tasneem Ahmadi, the counsel for the petitioner, submitted that the suits were filed only from 2020 and the transfer petition was filed in respect of one suit which challenged a compromise decree of 1968. However, suits having different causes of action are also sought to be clubbed together.
At this point, the bench asked if not the fundamental underlying issue of all the suits are not the same. “So is it not in the interest of everybody that the suits are consolidated and tried at the higher level at the earliest, Justice Kaul said. The counsel argued that consolidation of suits having different causes of action cannot be done.
Counsel of the petitioner said that the trial court is also equally competent to try the matter and pointed out that there is no considerable delay as the suits were filed from 2020. To this, Justice Kaul replied, “If the issue is settled at the High Court level, it will be better. The level of application of mind will be of a different level, one can say by sheer experience. And may be a better ability to handle the nature of the suit”.
“How many such cases are there? Let us call for all the details. We will ask the Registrar of the High Court. Then let us see how the trial should proceed. We are not fundamentally averse to trial court doing it or High Court doing it”, Justice Kaul said. After this, the bench decided to call for the details from the High Court.
“We consider it appropriate to ask Registrar of HC to forward to us what are the suits that are sought to be consolidated by the impugned order. There appears to be a little generality to the direction issued. List after three weeks”, the bench observed in the order.
In May, the Allahabad High Court allowed the transfer application moved by Bhagwan Shrikrishna Virajman and 7 others. It was observed, “looking to the fact that as many as 10 suits are stated to be pending before the civil court and also there 25 should be more suits that can be said to be pending and issue can be said to be seminal public importance affected the masses beyond tribe and beyond communities having not proceeded an inch further since their institution on merits for past
two to three years, provides full justification for withdrawal of all the suits touching upon the issue involved in the suit from the civil court concerned to this Court under Section 24(1)(b) CPC.”
The transfer petition was filed in Allahabad High Court by Advocate Vishnu Shankar Jain, Advocate Hari Shankar Jain, Ranjana Agnihotri and others. In the transfer application, it was argued that the issues involved in the suits pending before the Mathura Court concern crores of devotees of Lord Krishna and the matter is of national importance, hence, the same should be transferred to the High Court.