Law Kumar Mishra
Patna, September 30
For Surendra Kumar Yadav, it was the last date with destiny and end of his 31-year judicial career when he delivered a judgment in a 28 years old case– demolition of Babri structure at Ayodhya on December 6, 1992.
Yadav was initiated into UP lower judicial service as additional munsif magistrate on June 6, 1990. His career started at Ayodhya and ended with Ayodhya.
Today he acquitted all the 32 surviving accused including former deputy prime minister L K Advani, BJP veterans Murli Manohar Joshi, Uma Bharti and Kalyan Singh.
The author had an opportunity to meet Yadav in February last year when he had gone to record statement as a prosecution witness. For two days, main and cross examination continued. He had to put his signature on all the pages in presence of the judge. It was done in his chamber in the old High Court building.
Judge offered him evening tea and they talked many things off the record. He appeared to be a jovial one though he was promoted as district and sessions judge a year ago. He was humble, polite both inside the chamber and in the open court. He at one stage chided the lawyer “ek to gawah aate Nahi hai, aur jo aate hain, aap unke saath theek se pesh nahi aate.”
From the working of the prosecutors, CBI working from a small room in the court premises and four rooms in Circuit House, some guess about the future fate of the case was apparent. They were doing formalities.
Who demolished the structure would remain on records— not the karsewaks and none of the BJP, RSS, VHP, Bajrang Dal or Shiv Sena leaders. It were lumpen elements. Yadav dent the Goodwill of CBI by stating that it had presented tampered evidence.
Yadav was born at Jaunpur in eastern UP and had completed 60 in September 2019. He was on extension till delivery of the judgment.
For the author, it was a long association with Ram temple movement as a journalist only. He had covered the Ayodhya rath Yatra of Advani ji in September 1990 that originated from Somnath on Saurashtra coast.
Also, village level shila pujans initiated by Ashok Singhal and Giriraj Kishore were covered extensively.
Working of the CBI in this case appeared to be callous. The CBI man who had come to serve court summons to the author asked for the mobile no of Vidyaniwas Mishra, a former editor of Nav Bharat Times as summons were issued to him. When told he cannot be contacted on mobile, he asked for his address. He was told “ve to upar chale gaye hain.” The man insisted “CBI wahan bhi jayegi , kitni manjil par? The author had to tell him, Mishra ji died in a road accident 12 years ago. No home work.
CBI officials engaged in Ayodhya Case said in the afternoon they were collecting the copy of the 1700 pages judgement for legal examination. Any decision on appeal would be taken after legal examination of the order.
Court had commented the evidences were tamper by the prosecuting agency.
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