The Uttar Pradesh Shia Central Wakf Board on Wednesday said it would ask the government to give it the five-acre plot the Supreme Court had said should be allotted to build a mosque, if the Sunni wakf board rejects the offer.
But the board could use the land to set up a hospital and not a mosque, its chairman Waseem Rizvi said.
The board, he added, will not approach the court but would request the government for the land.
A five-judge bench had on November 9 ruled that a temple should be built through a trust set up by the government on the disputed site in Ayodhya, where the mosque was demolished in 1992.
The court ordered that Muslims, represented by the Sunni Central Wakf Board, should be allotted an alternative five-acre plot elsewhere in Ayodhya to build a mosque.
The constitution bench did not recognise the Shia claim on the disputed site.
The Sunni wakf board, one of the main litigants in the Ramjanmabhoomi-Babri Masjid case, is yet to decide whether to accept any alternative plot given for a mosque.
Rizvi said the Shia board would approach the government for the land if the Sunni board rejects the offer. “We will request the government to give it (the alternative plot) to us as the Supreme Court has also accepted that the Babri mosque was built by Mir Baqi, a Shia commander, and therefore the Shias have a claim over it.”
He said the Shia board could propose setting up a hospital there for the welfare of all sections of society, suggesting that might end the dispute for ever.
At a meeting on Wednesday, the Shia board also decided that filing a review petition against the court’s verdict could vitiate the atmosphere and Muslims should accept the judgment.
Rizvi said the board feels the verdict for a Ram temple had ended the dispute and was in the national interest.
The Sunni board had on Tuesday announced it would not file a review plea.
The All India Personal Law Board, which was not a party to the law suit, has said it would file a review petition by December 9, challenging the court’s verdict.
