CJI Ranjan Gogoi constitutes new 5-judge Supreme Court bench to hear Ayodhya case; Justices Ashok Bhushan and Abdul Nazeer to replace NV Ramana and UU Lalit

Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi has constituted once more a 5-judge Constitution bench of the Supreme Court that will take up the Ayodhya title suit case on January 29, at 10:30 AM. Justice Ashok Bhushan and Justice Abdul Nazeer will take the place of Justice Ramana and Justice UU Lalit, with the latter recusing himself when the case was last taken up on account having appeared as a counsel in a previous related case.

Here is the notification for the case being taken up: 

At the previous hearing on January 10, proceedings were hardly able to get off the ground Justice Lalit recused himself from the case after senior counsel Rajeev Dhawan brought to light that he had at one point been a lawyer in the associated Kalyan Singh case. While Dhawan didn't raise any objections to Justice Lalit hearing the Ayodhya case, the Justice recused himself.

The other hurdle had involved the translation of the copious amounts of documentary material. The CJI quantified these as follows: "A total of 88 witnesses have been examined. Documents run up to 13886 pages. Allahabad HC judgment runs into 4304 pages. Documents lying in 15 sealed trunks."

Following this, the CJI said that the case will be taken up again on January 29 for further orders. The Supreme Court registry was also asked to submit a report on by when all the documents can be translated and the filings can be complete to begin hearing the case.

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