The Supreme Court on Monday sought a report from a sessions judge in a Lucknow court on how he intends to complete the trial in the Babri Masjid demolition case involving Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) veterans LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and Uma Bharti within the April 2019 deadline.
A bench of Justices RF Nariman and Indu Malhotra also sought the Uttar Pradesh government's response on a plea by trial court judge SK Yadav, whose promotion was stayed by the Allahabad High Court on the ground that the top court had directed him to complete the trial.
The court asked for the report from the judge in a sealed cover.
On 19 April 2017, the top court had said Advani, Joshi and Bharti would be prosecuted for the offence of criminal conspiracy in 1992 Babri Masjid demolition case and ordered the trial to be concluded in two years, that is on 19 April 2019.
The top court had dubbed the demolition of the medieval era monument a "crime" that had shaken the "secular fabric of the Constitution" and allowed the CBI's plea on restoration of criminal conspiracy charges against the VVIP accused.
"There shall be no de novo (fresh) trial. There shall be no transfer of the Judge conducting the trial until the entire trial concludes. The case shall not be adjourned on any ground except when the sessions court finds it impossible to carry on the trial for that particular date," the top court had then said.
The top court had ordered clubbing of the separate trials in the trial courts of Rae Bareli and Lucknow, and asked for it to be conducted in Lucknow.
The conspiracy charge against 13 accused including Advani, Joshi and Bharti was dropped in the case, the trial of which was being held at a special court in Rae Bareli.
The second set of case was against unknown karsevaks who were in and around the disputed structure and had pulled it down. The trial against them was being held in a Lucknow court.