New Delhi: In an interim direction, the Supreme Court Wednesday directed Railways to pause the demolition drive near Sri Krishna Janmabhoomi in Mathura.
A bench comprising Justices Aniruddha Bose, Sanjay Kumar, and SVN Bhatti issued a notice and asked Railways to maintain status quo in respect to the disputed land for a period of 10 days.
Senior advocate Prashanto Chandra Sen, instructed by advocate Kaushik Choudhary, submitted before the apex court that Railways initiated demolition activities taking advantage of the situation when courts in Uttar Pradesh were closed pursuant to a resolution passed by Uttar Pradesh Bar Council on account of the shooting of an advocate.
“Issue notice. Let there be a status quo as regards the subject premises for a period of ten days,” ordered the bench, directing Railways to file its reply within a period of one week.
The court has posted the matter for further hearing after a week.
Earlier Monday, a bench led by CJI DY Chandrachud refused to pass any interim direction while granting liberty to the petitioners to move before the Allahabad High Court for an urgent hearing.
Later on the same day, the plea filed under Article 32 of the Constitution was urgently listed for hearing Wednesday.
The petitioner, Yakub Shah, in his plea filed before the Supreme Court, said that he had filed an application seeking a permanent injunction against demolition in civil court of Mathura but the Railway administration commenced demolition in the meantime.