The Liberhan Commission squarely laid the blame for the Babri Masjid demolition on senior BJP leaders, including Uma Bharti, Advani, Joshi, A B Vajpayee and then UP Chief Minister Kalyan Singh
NEW DELHI — Justice Manmohan Singh Liberhan, who headed the commission that investigated the 1992 Babri Masjid demolition, died on Sunday at the age of 87.
Justice Liberhan was the former Chief Justice of the Madras and Andhra Pradesh High Courts.
President of the Punjab and Haryana High Court Bar Association, Rohit Sud, announced Justice Liberhan’s death in Chandigarh on Sunday. His cremation was held on Monday, according to a PTI report.
Justice Liberhan led the longest-running commission of inquiry into the demolition of the Babri Masjid by a crowd of kar sevaks on December 6, 1992. In its report, the Liberhan Commission described the demolition as a “meticulously planned” act and said BJP leader Uma Bharti had “categorically” taken responsibility for the incident.
Ten days after the demolition of the mosque, the P V Narasimha Rao government appointed Justice Liberhan, then serving as judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, to head a one-man Commission of Inquiry into the demolition.
The probe, which was initially supposed to last no more than three months, ended up stretching over 17 years, received 48 extensions, held at least 315 sittings, and examined around 100 witnesses.
In its final report, submitted to then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on June 30, 2009, the Liberhan Commission reconstructed the events of December 6, 1992. It said more than 1.5 lakh kar sevaks had gathered in Ayodhya under the leadership of senior BJP leaders, including L K Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi.
According to the report, as the day progressed, a mob of around 5,000 kar sevaks overwhelmed the police and security forces, scaled the Babri Masjid, and demolished the structure using hammers, pickaxes, shovels and crowbars.
The Liberhan Commission squarely laid the blame for the demolition on senior BJP leaders, including Uma Bharti, Advani, Joshi, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and then Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Kalyan Singh. The report described that the mobilisation of kar sevaks in Ayodhya was neither “spontaneous nor voluntary” but “orchestrated and planned.”
However, in September 2020, a Special CBI court in Lucknow acquitted all 32 surviving accused, ruling that the prosecution had failed to prove a pre-planned conspiracy beyond a reasonable doubt.
Justice Liberhan began his legal career at the Punjab and Haryana High Court in 1964 and was elected to the Punjab and Haryana Bar Council in 1970, later serving as its secretary from 1976 to 1983.
He went on to serve as Additional Advocate General of Haryana before being appointed Advocate General of the state in August 1986. In February 1987, he was elevated as a judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court. He was appointed Chief Justice of the Madras High Court in July 1997 and later became Chief Justice of the Andhra Pradesh High Court in February 1998, a position he held until his retirement in 2000. — With Inputs from Agencies
