The Supreme Court on Friday issued notices to BJP leaders L K Advani,Murli Manohar Joshi and Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray,directing them to respond to a CBI appeal for restoration of the charge of criminal conspiracy to demolish the Babri Masjid in 1992. A Bench of Justices V S Sirpurkar and T S Thakur asked them to file their replies within four weeks. Solicitor General Gopal Subramanium,appearing for CBI,questioned the legality of the Allahabad HC order in May 2010 upholding a Special Judges decision to quash the charge of criminal conspiracy against the leaders. Twenty-one others under the apex court scanner include Ashok Singhal,Giriraj Kishore,Vinay Katiyar,Vishnu Hari Dalmiya,Sadhvi Rithambara,Mahant Avaidya Nath,former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Uma Bharti and former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Kalyan Singh. It appears an artificial distinction was made by the trial court attempting to assign a role in respect of each of the accused persons and to see which offences were made out. The trial court erroneously came to the conclusion that 21 persons were not entitled to be tried in the case (pertaining to the demolition on December 6,1992), the CBI argued in its petition.
