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Legal proceedings against Union Home Minister L K Advani and other top Bhartiya Janata Party and Vishwa Hindu Parishad leaders in the eight-year old Babri mosque demolition case could continue in a Rae Barelli court, where the case was initiated on December 6, 1992.
This follows an a observation by the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court on Monday in a Public Interest Litigation petition moved by journalist Kuldip Nayar and a few others.
While dismissing the petition, Chief Justice S K Sen held that the Central Bureau of Investigation was free to continue the case before the original trial court where proceedings had been initiated shortly after the demolition.
While the judgement had thrown the ball in the CBI's court, legal experts were of the view that CBI was bound to proceed in the matter before the trial court.
"Since both parties agreed that the case was still alive against each of the original 49 accused, there was no way the proceedings could be dropped completely; only fresh charge-sheets would have to be filed by the CBI before the court in Rae Barelli, where the proceedings had begun in 1993," senior counsel I B Singh told rediff.com.
The proceedings were initiated before a judicial magistrate at Mata Tila in Jhansi district of southern Uttar Pradesh in 1992, but shortly thereafter the case was transferred to another court in Rae Barelli. Hence the proceedings could now be taken up before the judicial magistrate in Rae Barelli.
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