Lucknow: As many as 51 Uttar Pradesh officials have
been named by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in a case of
missing files related to the Ramjanmbhoomi-Babri Masjid row.
The list was submitted by the premier investigation agency before a
special bench of the Allahabad High Court Thursday.
What was being debated
before the high court for the past 17 years was determination of the
title over the land on which the mosque was built in the 16th
century. Claiming that the mosque was erected after demolition of an
ancient Ram temple that marked the birthplace of Lord Ram, violent
Hindu kar sewaks had pulled down the mosque Dec 6, 1992.
However, the special
bench comprising Justice D.V. Sharma, Justice S.U. Khan and Justice
Sudhir Agarwal had to digress from the main issue after its
attention was drawn to the missing files.
Uttar Pradesh advocate
general Jyotindra Misra claimed that show-cause notices had already
been issued to all employees, who were considered prima facie
responsible for the missing files.
The CBI probe was
ordered by the high court shortly after it was discovered that 23
files related to the Ayodhya case were missing from the state home
department.
The court took serious
note of the extremely slow pace of progress in the probe. The CBI
had been seeking repeated extensions to complete the probe. The
bench has now fixed Feb 8 for the next hearing.
CBI counsel Veereshwar
Nath assured the bench that the agency would submit its report by
Jan 31.
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