Ayodhya petitioner not a proxy, says lawyer

"We need more people who do not have a direct interest in the Ayodhya title suit coming up to fight the case out in the Supreme Court to clear the misconception that my client has been acting as a proxy," Prashanth Chandra, senior counsel, who represented Ramesh Chandra Tripathi at the High Court and the Supreme Court, told rediff.com.

It was retired bureaucrat Tripathi who challenged the order of the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court refusing to defer the verdict in the 60-year-old Ram Janambhoomi-Babri Masjid title suit dispute.

"The verdict was much needed in public interest and we are hopeful that we will be able to convince the court that the matter should be settled out of court. This is a national issue and cannot be decided by two parties alone,' he said.

"A lot is being said about my client Tripathi and the fact that he has been set up by someone to intentionally delay the verdict. This is not at all true and the fact is that he had given up following the high court verdict which refused to defer the judgment. Which is why we joined hands and pooled in money and sent him to Delhi in the first place.

He did not even have the money to purchase a train ticket, leave alone file a Special Leave Petition before the Supreme Court of India," he said. 

"It is not sufficient if just one Tripathi fights this case out. We would like to call on a lot of people to come forward and argue before the Supreme Court and convince the highest court of the land that the matter is extremely sensitive by nature and needs to be settled amicably at any cost."

Chandra concluded, "Our line of argument before the Supreme Court will not change and we will seek the intervention of dispassionate people to come forward and settle the issue. I understand that the two parties who are battling the title suit are not interested in a compromise and it is obvious since they will have their own individual grounds. But what needs to be seen here is larger national interest and a verdict of this nature will only wreck the common man."