The Jamiat report said the Supreme Court’s Ayodhya verdict shows that ‘majoritarian politics has penetrated deeply into legal recognition’ (Image credit: ANI)

New Delhi: Noting that the Madhya Pradesh High Court’s order declaring the disputed Bhojshala complex in Dhar district as a temple only validates the apprehensions and concerns that he has continuously raised since 2019. Ayodhya verdictJamiat Ulama-e-Hind (JUH) released a report on Friday arguing that the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Places of Worship Act shows “how deeply majoritarian politics has penetrated legal recognition”.JUH said that it was just a coincidence that the report was being released on the same day when the order for Bhojshala came. Speaking at the event attended by senior lawyers, legal experts, former judges, researchers and intellectuals, JUH president Maulana Mahmood Asad Madani said the controversies did not end with the Babri Masjid issue; Rather, new controversies related to Gyanvapi, Mathura Idgah, Kamal Maula Masjid and other religious places are now arising, reopening old wounds.The report titled “A Critical Analysis of the Babri Masjid Judgment and the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act 1991 Case” provides a detailed analysis of key Supreme Court judgments, including the Ismail Faruqui case and the Ayodhya judgment, claiming that certain judicial interpretations have weakened constitutional principles relating to the protection of religious places.In particular, the report discusses the far-reaching implications of comments made in the Ismail Faruqui case, in which a mosque was not considered an essential part of Islamic practice in every circumstance. “As the judiciary increasingly accommodates Hindutva majoritarianism, Muslim holy sites have become legally unsafe, culturally contested, and politically targeted,” the report said.The report said the Places of Worship Act 1991 was designed to stabilize the religious character of places of worship as they existed on August 15, 1947. “Yet recent court decisions have interpreted the Act so narrowly that new claims against mosques in Varanasi, Mathura and elsewhere are now being advanced.”“The arguments made in those cases relating to essential practices, beliefs, archaeological evidence and civilizational memory are now being replicated in ongoing litigation involving the Gyanvapi Mosque in Sambhal, the Shahi Idgah in Mathura and others,” the report said.The report recommends that the judiciary should uphold the Places of Worship Act as intended and it should be strictly enforced and the protection of religious places should be treated as a constitutional obligation. It further recommended that “communal politics and historical claims should not be allowed to become instruments of legal disputes.