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".
