Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991

The Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991 seeks to maintain and protect the religious character of places of worship in India. In 2022, the division bench of Supreme Court of India led by Chief Justice of India D.Y Chandrachud accepted a petition challenging the constitutional validity of the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991.

Quotes

• History that is written by the victors, I had remarked earlier, is peddled by the vanquished, and as far as I am concerned, one of the most barbaric legislations ever peddled in India is the 1991 Places of Worship Act. But in 2019, the virtue-signalling Supreme Court in its Ayodhya Judgment wilfully ratified this Act that obligates maintaining all religious places, except Ram Janambhoomi, as they were on 15 August 1947—a 75-year-old date in an 8,000-year-old civilisation. Historical injustice of Kashi or Mathura can now never be addressed unless the Parliament overrides not only this barbaric act but also the Supreme Court’s perfidious ratification of it.
  A legal recourse to correct historical injustices cannot be denied in a democracy. And this is not a Hindu issue.
  • (2023.) Hindus in Hindu Rashtra : Eighth-Class Citizens and Victims of State-Sanctioned Apartheid. by Anand Ranganathan

• Draconian laws like the Places of Worship Act, 1991, prevent Hindus from even seeking peaceful, legal reclaim of what has been forcibly snatched from them. Which justice-abiding democracy in the world would have such provisions? Even when there are visible signs of broken temples atop which domes were erected (like in Kashi), to promote social harmony the minority is never asked to have a generous heart and hand over these sacrosanct spaces that are as holy as Mecca or Jerusalem to Hindus.
  • Vikram Sampath - Waiting for Shiva_ Unearthing the Truth of Kashi's Gyan Vapi-BluOne Ink (2024)