In an intriguing twist to the Ayodhya inquiry, the Vajpayee Government today contended that the Liberhan Commission had no jurisdiction to probe the role of the Narasimha Rao Government in the Babri Masjid demolition. The Centre’s counsel, Lala Ram Gupta, asserted that the commission’s terms of reference do not permit it to go into the Union Government’s conduct while giving its findings on the December 6, 1992, incident. Reading out the terms of reference, Gupta said the commission could go into the role of the then chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, Kalyan Singh, his council of ministers, and organisations and individuals involved in the incident. Giving a narrow interpretation to the commission’s ambit, Gupta argued that the commission should also not come up with any finding on whether there was a conspiracy behind the demolition. This argument was again based on the fact that the term ‘‘conspiracy’’ was conspicuously missing from the commission’s terms of reference framed by the Narasimha Rao Government. Justice Liberhan, however, countered the Centre’s stand by asking how he could deal in his report with, for instance, the attack on press photographers on the fateful day in Ayodhya without going into the conspiracy angle. Liberhan pointed out that the Press Council of India had already reported that there was a conspiracy to attack journalists in a bid to prevent them from revealing the truth. The Centre urged the commission to desist from making any comments on the movement that led to the demolition of the Babri Masjid. This despite the fact that, while tracing the genesis of the conspiracy, the Centre talked extensively before the commission about events going as far back as 1528, when the mosque was built. Gupta further argued that the commission should not touch upon the long-standing debate on secularism vs pseudo secularism and Hindutva vs Hinduism. Making a foray into the political realm, Gupta said that the Vajpayee Government was under pressure from its supporters who have been complaining that ‘‘the previous government at least demolished the mosque. The present Government has not been able to construct even a small temple.’’
