Context: Recently, a Hindu body has moved the Supreme Court challenging a provision of a 1991 law that provides for maintaining “religious character” of holy structures as it existed on August 15, 1947, in a bid to open the litigation route to reclaim disputed religious sites other than the Ram Janmabhoomi in Ayodhya.
Issue

• A Lucknow-based trust and some followers of Sanatan Vedic Religion have contended the Act bars power of remedy of judicial review and violates the principle of secularism.
• The plea said the Parliament by way of the Act retrospectively created a cut-off date of August 15, 1947 for its implementation.
• The Hindu devotees cannot file any suit in Civil Court or High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution of India and will not be able to restore back the religious character of Hindu Endowments, Temples, Mutts etc. from hoodlums if they had encroached upon such property before 15th August 1947.
• The Ayodhya dispute was kept out of its purview of the Act.
• Any restriction on right to approach Civil or High Court is against the basic principle of rule of law.

Key Points

• The provision of the 1991 law permits the maintenance of “religious character” of holy structures as it existed when India was partitioned on 15 August 1947
• The law furthermore prohibits conversion of any temple into a mosque, and vice versa
• It is a significant move as the petition puts the spotlight on Hindu pilgrimage sites of Kashi and Mathura where two mosques stand

About the Act

• Significance of the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991
• The Act was passed in September 1991, over a year before the demolition of the Babri Masjid (1992).

Purpose

• Section 3 of the Act bans the conversion of a place of worship or even a section of it into a place of worship of a different religious denomination or of a different segment of the same religious denomination.
• The Act also imposes a positive obligation on the State to maintain the religious character of every place of worship as it existed at the time of Independence.
• This legislative obligation on the State to preserve and protect the equality of all faiths is an essential secular feature and one of the basic features of the Indian Constitution.
• The Act seeks to maintain the religious character of holy structures as it was at Independence i.e. it prohibits the conversion of a temple into a mosque and vice versa.
• The Act declares that the character of a place of worship as was on August 15, 1947 shall be maintained and no suit or any proceeding shall lie in any court in respect of any dispute against encroachment of any religious properties at any point of time before this date.
• Section 4 also says that any such pending proceeding shall stand abated and that if any proceeding filed on the ground that conversion of religious place has taken place after that date and before September 18, 1991 when the Act was made, shall be disposed off to maintain the status as was existing on August 15, 1947.

Exemption:

• The disputed site at Ayodhya is exempted from the Act. Due to this exemption, the trial in the Ayodhya case proceeded even after the enforcement of this law.
• The Act also does not apply to any place of worship which is an ancient and historical monument or an archaeological site covered by the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1958.
• Penalty: Section 6 of the Act prescribes a punishment of maximum three-years imprisonment along with a fine for contravening the provisions of the Act.