Muslim law board to file Ayodhya appeal next week

The All India Muslim Personal Law Board's appeal in the Ayodhya case will be filed before the Supreme Court of India in the first week of November, a senior member of the board told rediff.com.

Professor Mohammed Sulaiman, who has been on the board's core committee, told this correspondent that the final copy of their appeal is more or less ready.

On the line of argument they would advance before the apex court, he said the main point of contention would be that the verdict of the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court is more of a suggestion than a direction. It is not possible to implement such an order and more importantly, the very foundation of their case has not been considered while the order was passed.

He further said various issues had been framed during the course of the arguments before the high court, but the final judgment was not pronounced on the basis of the issues that were framed.

When asked about the possibility of a settlement as suggested by the high court, he said the question does not arise.

"Even now, despite the high court saying that the land be divided into three parts, the other side continues to insist that we Muslims let go of the entire land. Nothing has changed in the past 19 years.

"In the past two decades we have had discussions 11 times and each of those times, we were told to let go of the land," he said.