Supreme Court tags Owaisi’s plea on Places of Worship Act with pending matters

The Supreme Court today directed the tagging of a plea filed by AIMIM President Asaduddin Owaisi seeking implementation of the Places of Worship Act, 1991 with a pending batch of matters.

The 1991 Act prohibits the filing of a lawsuit to reclaim a place of worship or seek a change in its character from what prevailed on August 15, 1947.

A Bench of Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar ordered that Owaisi’s plea be tagged with the pending clutch of petitions, where it had imposed restrictions on registering new suits, delivering effective or final judgments, or ordering surveys in ongoing cases concerning mosques and shrines.

In an interim order passed on December 12, 2024, the CJI Khanna-led Special Bench had ordered that no fresh suits would be registered under the Places of Worship Act in the country, and in the pending cases, no final or effective orders would be passed till further orders.

The Special Bench had asked the Union government to file within four weeks its reply to the batch of petitions challenging the validity of the Places of Worship Act, 1991. On the other hand, several intervention applications were filed before the Supreme Court seeking the dismissal of the petitions against the Places of Worship Act.