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Samajwadi Party legislators went on a rampage in the Uttar Pradesh assembly on Wednesday when Speaker Kesri Nath Tripathi disallowed a debate on the question of issuing a fresh notification to revive criminal proceedings against Deputy Prime Minister Lal Kishenchand Advani and 21 others accused in the Babri Masjid demolition case.
Pramod Tiwari, leader of the Congress in the assembly, initially raised the demand to discuss the issue of a fresh notification, but when Samajwadi Party politician and Leader of the Opposition Azam Khan rose to speak, the speaker disallowed him.
That sparked the trouble, as Samajwadi Party members led by Khan himself wrestled with the marshals and tore all official documents and stationery kept with the assembly secretary and other assembly reporters seated below the speaker's podium.
Climbing atop the desks they dismantled the mike on the secretary's desk and flung the papers all over the well of the House.
Housing and Urban Development Minister Lalji Tandon, leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the state assembly, deplored the act of the Samajwadi members. "This only spoke volumes of the intention of the Samajwadi Party members to disrupt the smooth proceedings of the House," he told reporters later.
Legislative Affairs Minister Sukhdeo Rajbhar said, "When the Supreme Court had given eight weeks time to the state government to decide on the question of issuing a fresh notification, what was the point in forcing the government to disclose its plans at this juncture?"
Rajbhar added that the government would convey its decision on the matter to the apex court.
Speaker Tripathi declined to make any statement to the press.
Apparently, what angered the opposition was Bahujan Samaj Party leader and Chief Minister Mayawati's volte-face on the issue.
In May 2001, when the special court trying the Babri Masjid demolition case dropped the proceedings against Advani and 21 others, Mayawati had accused the government of the day of 'deliberately' issuing a faulty notification to set up the special court in October 1993. She said she had reason to believe that the state government in 1993 and the BJP had connived on the issue.
Under the notification, Advani and 21 prominent BJP and Vishwa Hindu Parishad leaders were charged with conspiring to demolish the 16th century mosque in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992. The demolition had sparked countrywide riots.
Among the other accused were Murli Manohar Joshi, now Union minister for human resources development, Uma Bharti, now Union sports minister, Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray, VHP president Ashok Singhal, Vinay Katiyar, then chief of the Bajrang Dal and now heading the BJP's Uttar Pradesh unit, and former chief minister Kalyan Singh.
Almost eight years later, on May 4, 2001, after the Central Bureau of Investigation had filed charge sheets in the case, the proceedings were dropped because the Allahabad high court ruled that the state government's notification setting up the special court was itself erroneous.
The proceedings were held invalid because the state government had not cared to seek the high court's permission to set up the special court, mandatory under the law.
The court, however, added that the proceedings could be revived by correcting this lapse and issuing a fresh notification.
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