Ayodhya case: Muslim parties express shock over reports claiming Sunni Waqf Board's withdrawal from matter

New Delhi: Muslim parties in the Ayodhya land dispute case on Friday issued a statement expressing shock over reports suggesting that the Sunni Waqf Board was withdrawing from the case. Advocate Eijaz Maqbool, who represented key Muslim litigant M Siddiq in the Ayodhya land dispute, said all Muslim parties, except the Sunni Waqf Board, have rejected settlement as the main Hindu parties to the dispute were not part of the mediation process and its purported settlement. The Muslim parties, except the Sunni Waqf Board, issued a clarificatory statement to say they don’t accept the Supreme Court-appointed mediation panel’s proposal on the purported settlement to amicably resolve the Ram Janmabhoomi Babri Masjid land dispute. On 16 October, when a five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi reserved its verdict in the case after 40-days of hearing, the mediation panel’s report was also reportedly submitted to the court. The three-member mediation panel is headed by former apex court judge Justice FMI Kalifulla. According to sources close to the mediation panel, the report filed in a sealed cover is a “sort of a settlement” between the Hindu and the Muslim parties. The sources said the Sunni Waqf Board, Nirvani Akhada, Nirmohi Akhada, Ram Janmabhoomi Punruddhar Samiti and some other Hindu parties are in favour of settling the contentious land dispute. It was also purportedly said the Sunni Waqf Board was willing to withdraw the lawsuit as part of compromise formula.