SC rejects plea by son of main petitioner against Places of Worship Act

NEW DELHI: Supreme Court Tuesday refused to entertain a petition challenging validity of Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991, filed by

Nitin Upadhyay

, son of the person,

Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay

, whose petition is the lead

PIL

pending adjudication for the last five years.
As the number of petitions - those by the Hindu side questioning the unilateral freezing of religious status of structures as on Aug 15, 1947, and others by the Muslim side seeking implementation of the Act in letter and spirit - grew exponentially over the years, a bench led by CJI Sanjiv Khanna had put a lid over fresh filings on the issue.
On Tuesday, a bench of CJI Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar turned down repeated pleas by senior advocate G V Rao, assisted by Ashwini Upadhyay, for tagging the petition with pending ones.