Hindus get the entire disputed site for Ram Mandir in Ayodhya

The Supreme Court in a historic judgement has pronounced that a temple be constructed for Hindus on a 2.77-acre site in Uttar Pradesh's Ayodhya town, which has been the epicentre of independent India's biggest religion-political wrangle, while Muslims should get an alternative land to build a potential mosque.

The five-judge Constitution bench, headed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, ruled unanimously that the spot, where frenzied right-wing mobs destroyed the four-centuries-old Babri Masjid in 1992, should be handed over to a trust that the Centre must constitute in three months to oversee the construction of a temple, subject to conditions.

The highly anticipated ruling is the outcome of a legal tussle that began in 1950 - shortly after idols of deities were surreptitiously placed inside the structure - with Hindu groups saying the mosque had been built on top of a temple that had stood on the precise birthplace of Lord Ram, while Muslims contested this. However, the earliest recorded instances of violence over the land go back to the 1850s.

The demolition of the mosque in 1992 triggered communal riots that engulfed several parts of India, killing more than 2,000 people and changing the country's politics forever, as it accelerated the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which had been at the forefront of the Ram temple movement along with its affiliates.

In the judgement running into 1,045 pages, the apex court said a report by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) provided evidence of the remains of a building "that was not Islamic" beneath the demolished mosque. The bench, also comprising Justices SA Bobde, DY Chandrachud, Ashok Bhushan and S Abdul Nazeer, noted that the faith of Hindus that Ram was born at the site of the now-razed masjid is undisputed, and the existence of structures like SitaRasoi, Ram Chabutra and BhandarGrih are testimony to the religious fact of the place. However, the title cannot be established on the ground of faith and belief and they are only indicators for deciding the dispute, the five judges also said.

CJI Gogoi, who headed the panel and is set to retire on November 17, read out the judgement to a packed courtroom, while outside some lawyers and Hindu activists chanted "Jai Sri Ram" and blew conches as a mark of celebration.