The All India Muslim Personal Law Board believes that the Sangh parivar knows it will lose the Ayodhya case in the Supreme Court and is, therefore, seeking a legislative route to a Ram temple on the disputed site.

“We are saying we are ready to wait for the court order and to accept it. But the groups associated with the BJP are preparing to have a law enacted in Parliament (to pave the way) for the Ram temple,” member Qasim Rasool Iliyas told reporters after the law board’s annual meeting here on Sunday.

“See who is not ready to respect the court! It’s the VHP, RSS and the BJP that don’t have the patience,” added Iliyas, a member of the Babri Masjid Action Committee, a law board arm that is providing legal support to the Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board in the case.

Law board general secretary Syed Mohammad Wali Rahmani said: “Although we discussed many issues relating to the community, including the (instant) triple talaq and social security for women, our focus remained on the Babri Masjid case, which we are about to win.”

A Supreme Court bench is expected to decide sometime in January when the case would be heard.

The law board has decided to seek lawyers’ opinion about mounting a legal challenge if the government’s bill outlawing the instant triple talaq is enacted in the winter session.

The bill has been passed by the Lok Sabha and awaits the nod of the Rajya Sabha, where the government lacks the numbers. Currently, an ordinance against the instant triple talaq is in place.

“We will move the Supreme Court if the bill is cleared by both Houses of Parliament,” said Zafaryab Jilani, a member of the law board.

Allahabad High Court had in 2010 divided the disputed 2.77-acre plot in Ayodhya equally among the Sunni Waqf Board, Nirmohi Akhara and Ram Lala Virajman (infant Ram, represented by VHP leader Triloki Nath Pandey).

All three parties, as well as others, have challenged the verdict in the apex court. Both the Hindu and Muslim sides have claimed ownership of the entire plot for their own community.

Sangh parivar outfits and even some Union ministers have questioned the apex court’s refusal to speed up the hearing.

The VHP and the RSS have organised rallies in Ayodhya and Delhi to pressure the Narendra Modi government into enacting a law or issuing an ordinance to pave the way for the temple before the general election.

The Hindu groups claim the plot was the birthplace of Ram and hosted a temple to him, and that a chieftain of Mughal emperor Babar had in the 16th century razed it and built the mosque. The Muslim side claims there was never a temple at the site.

A Hindu mob demolished the Babri Masjid in December 1992. A makeshift Ram temple stands at the site.