The Supreme Court, today, has reserved its order on a petition seeking, restoration of conspiracy charges against senior BJP leaders, including LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and Uma Bharti in the Babri Masjid demolition case.

The apex court will also decide whether, the trail of the accused VVIP’s can be transferred from a court in Rae Bareli to Lucknow.

There are two sets of cases, relating the demolition of the disputed structure on December 6, 1992. The first involved unnamed “karsevaks”, the trail of which is taking place in a Lucknow court in Lucknow, while  the second set of cases relates to the VVIPs in a Rae Bareli court.

A bench comprising Justices P C Ghose and R F Nariman also pointed out that, they may order holding of joint trial of the two sets of cases, by transferring the trail from Raebareli to a Lucknow court.

Since 25 years have already passed, in the interest of justice, the bench said, it will consider ordering a time bound trial, on a day-to-day basis, to be completed preferably within two years.

Senior advocate, K K Venugopal, appearing for Advani and Joshi, in a loud and forceful manner opposed the proposal for holding joint trial, and transferring their case from Rae Bareli to Lucknow.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, supported the joint trail proposal, asserting the two sets of cases, had arisen from one incident, which allegedly involved single conspiracy.

The apex court, also gave opportunity to all the parties to file their written submission by Tuesday. Earlier, the apex court, had decided to examine the appeal against dropping of the conspiracy charge against Advani, Joshi, Uma Bharti and 10 others.

The clubbing of the two FIR’s was opposed by the counsel for the accused, on the ground, that there were different sets of persons named as accused in the two cases. And the trail of which were at an advanced stage at two different places.

An additional charge was filed against eight persons, but not the 13 who were discharged for plotting the demolition. Besides BJP leaders Advani, Joshi and Bharti, conspiracy charges were dropped against Kalyan Singh (currently the Governor of Rajasthan), and late Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray and VHP leader Acharya Giriraj Kishore.

The others against whom the conspiracy charge was dropped include Vinay Katiyar, Vishnu Hari Dalmiya, Satish Pradhan, C R Bansal, late Ashok Singhal, Sadhvi Ritambhara, late Mahant Avaidhynath, R V Vedanti, late Paramhans Ram Chandra Das, Jagdish Muni Maharaj, B L Sharma, Nritya Gopal Das, Dharam Das, Satish Nagar and late Moreshwar Save.

By Supraja