Ayodhya case verdict: The Supreme Court on Saturday delivered a historic judgment in the decade-long Babri Masjid-Ram Temple case, ruling in favour of construction of a Ram Temple at the disputed site and directing the Centre to allot a 5-acre plot to the Sunni Waqf Board for building a mosque at a "prominent" place in Ayodhya. In a unanimous Ayodhya verdict, the five-judge SC bench, comprising Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, Justices SA Bobde, DY Chandrachud, Ashok Bhushan and S Abdul Nazeer, said the entire 2.77-acre of disputed land in Ayodhya to Ram Lalla. The SC bench, in its Ayodhya verdict, also directed the Centre to set up a trust in three months to formulate a scheme for the construction of Ram Temple.

The 2.77 acres disputed land had been bone of contention between Hindus and Muslims since before India got Independence in 1947. The RSS and its affiliate organisations like Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) have been at the forefront of the Ram Temple movement since 1990s. However, unlike the 90s when the Ram Temple movement was at its peak, the issue will no longer remain a boiling point for parties, especially the BJP. The construction of a grand Ram Temple was also one of the big promises of the BJP in 2014 Lok Sabha polls, when it swept to power at the Centre.

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Since the SC has now paved away for the Modi government to ensure the building of the Ram Temple at the disputed site, it's up to the BJP government to follow the apex court guidelines. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad has been doing stone-carving work at Ram Temple site since 1990. All the artisans involved in the work had returned to their homes after VHP stopped construction work in wake of the SC judgment.

Notably, the work on carving of stones was started by the VHP in 1990 and had been carried out uninterrupted since then. According to the VHP, around 1.25 lakh cubic foot of stones have already been carved at the site. The organisation claims that stonework is sufficient for the construction of the first floor of the proposed temple, but 1.75 lakh cubic footstone for the rest of the structure was still to be carved.

Edited by Manoj Sharma with agency inputs

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