Ranjit Lal Verma, counsel for the Akhara, said in Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh where lies the mosque, that he was leaving for New Delhi to move an application in the apex court. "I am heading for Delhi to move an application before the apex court for postponing the verdict for three months," Verma told IANS on Monday.

He is also seeking the apex court's intervention for granting extension to a judge of the Allahabad High Court, Dharam Veer Sharma, who is retiring on Sept. 30.

Justice Sharma is one of the three judges on the Lucknow bench of the high court which is due to deliver judgment on the title suit. The high court had reserved its verdict on July 27 and set Sept. 24 for the pronouncement.

But the Supreme Court imposed an interim stay on the verdict following a petition filed by Ramesh Chandra Tripathi, a retired bureaucrat. The apex court is now scheduled to take a final call on Tripathi's plea on Tuesday.

Tripathi sought the postponement till at least the end of the Oct. 3-14 Commonwealth Games. He also sought the court's direction to the parties to explore the possibility of an out-of-court amicable settlement.

Meanwhile, the Sunni Central Wakf Board on Monday said the petition by Tripathi seeking the deferment of the verdict was "untenable, misconceived and frivolous" and needed to be dismissed.

The board's affidavit, filed in the apex court registry, also said the petitioner's "assumption of so-called repercussions or apprehensions was totally unfounded".

The board also said there was no such apprehension among the general public of Ayodhya and Faizabad.

Describing Tripathi's petition as nothing but an attempt to thwart the entire judicial efforts of last 60 years and put the clock back, the affidavit said that Tripathi has not appeared in the high court to plead his case in the last 19 years.

The only occasion he appeared in the court was in May 2005 when he told the court that he had no witness to present before the court and his evidence was closed, the affidavit noted.

It said it was "evident that Tripathi has no following amongst the Hindus and such a person could not be expected to undertake the exercise of out-of-court mutual settlement between the contending parties".