The Supreme Court on Friday ordered mediation to settle the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid Ayodhya title dispute case by a three-member panel.
The panel will be headed by former Supreme Court judge Justice F.M.I. Kalifulla with Art of Living founder, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, and senior advocate Shriram Panchu as its members.
Ordering the mediation, the five-judge constitution bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, Justice S.A. Bobde, Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, Justice Ashok Bhushan and Justice S. Abdul Nazeer barred both the print and visual media from reporting on the mediation proceedings.
It also barred those participating in the proceedings from speaking to the media.
Interestingly, the panel that has been order by the Supreme Court has all of its three members hailing from Tamil Nadu.
Fakkir Mohamed Ibrahim Kalifulla
Justice Kalifulla, the head of the three-member panel is a retired Supreme Court judge who has earlier also served as the chief justice of Jammu and Kashmir High Court. He became a permanent member of the Madras High Court in 2000 before getting transferred to J&K in 2011.
In 2012, he was elevated to the SC from which he retired in July 2016. Kalifulla hails from Tamil Nadu’s Sivagangai district.
Sriram Panchu
Sriram Panchu is a senior advocate and a well-known mediator based in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. In 2005, he had founded the Mediation Chambers, making it India’s first court-annexed mediation center.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
Ravi Shankar is a famous Indian spiritual guru and is also the founder of the well known organisation Art of Living. The 62-year-old leader also hails from Tamil Nadu.
Ravi Shankar in a 2018 interview had said, “Muslims should give up their claim on Ayodhya as a goodwill gesture. Ayodhya is not a place of faith for Muslims. We cannot make Lord Ram to be born in another place”.
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