The retired chief justice of Odisha High Court reflected on the judiciary’s mixed record in upholding the country’s secular fabric, offering sharp criticism of landmark judgments and institutional failures
NEW DELHI – The Supreme Court went beyond the scope of the suits before it in the historic Babri Masjid case, senior advocate and a retired chief justice of the Odisha High Court has said.
“No one had asked for the construction of a temple,” he said. The ruling, he added, “was completely outside the realm of the suits” and its fallout continues to affect the courts, he said.
Delivering the second AG Noorani Memorial Lecture on “Secularism and the Judiciary: An Uneasy Relationship” at the India Islamic Cultural Centre here at the weekend (September 6), Dr Justice S Muralidhar said the directions issued under Article 142 had neither a legal foundation nor any request from the Indian government or Hindu parties, and the temple construction question was never part of the original dispute.
Justice Muralidhar, who also served as a judge at the Punjab and Haryana High Court and Delhi High Court. reflected on the judiciary’s mixed record in upholding the country’s secular fabric, offering sharp criticism of landmark judgments and institutional failures.
Justice Muralidhar began his lecture by honouring AG Noorani, describing his writings as thorough, fearless, and grounded in evidence. He stressed that Noorani’s legacy should inspire jurists to speak truth without fear.
Much of Justice Muralidhar’s lecture focused on the Babri Masjid case. He traced events from the 1885 Faizabad court warning of violence to the 1992 demolition. He condemned the Supreme Court’s 2019 Ayodhya ruling, noting that despite acknowledging the unlawful destruction of the mosque, the court still handed over the land for a temple trust, which he termed judicial overreach.
He criticised the lack of accountability, pointing out how leaders who had pledged to protect the mosque went unpunished. Criminal trials ended in acquittals despite substantial evidence.
Media reports quoted him as saying that the Supreme Court’s conduct was an instance of “unforgivable institutional amnesia” and “a classic case of impunity.”
He cited the Supreme Court’s inaction on the suo motu contempt petition against former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Kalyan Singh, filed after the Babri Masjid was demolished in 1992. “It was not taken up for 22 years. And then when it was listed before Justice (Sanjay) Kaul it was said; why flog a dead horse. This is institutional amnesia, which in my view is unforgivable, of an act which the Supreme Court found was an egregious crime,” he was quoted as saying in an Indian Express report.
Despite the Places of Worship Act, litigation over religious sites has multiplied, Muralidhar warned. “We have had suits emerging everywhere; 17 suits all over the country,” he noted.
The retired judge also criticised television media for framing national debates in terms of “Hindu-Muslim questions,” ignoring India’s plural traditions. “We tend to forget that ours is a composite culture,” he said, adding that “what they say throughout the [Ayodhya] judgment and what they eventually rule does not seem a logical outcome at all.”
Referring indirectly to former Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, widely regarded as the Ayodhya verdict’s author, he observed: “It was an author-less judgment but the author himself said he consulted the deity before (delivering) it,” the Indian Express report said.
Reasserting India’s diversity, Muralidhar stressed: “India’s population is as diverse as it is also devout … We never were nor can be one culture, one language, or one religion.” He endorsed Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia’s dissent in the Karnataka hijab case, cautioning that “getting into essential religious practices is problematic because you are entering theology. It is a dangerous exercise because judges can get it wrong.”
Calling for judicial introspection, Muralidhar added: “We don’t ask who our judges are and what their religious beliefs are. To secure secularism for the future, we will have to go back and start from schools.”
He described secularism as a constitutional guarantee of equal respect for all faiths. Recalling childhood visits to Nagapattinam, where temples, dargahs, and churches coexist, he called this coexistence India’s “composite culture.”
