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New Delhi: The Supreme Court on August 19 refused to stay the trial proceedings in the Ayodhya demolition case at Rae Bareilly but directed listing for hearing next week two petitions seeking quashing of a CBI chargesheet dropping conspiracy charge against Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani, HRD (Human Resources Development) Minister Murli Manohar Joshi and other BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) and VHP (Vishwa Hindu Parishad) leaders.

A Bench comprising Chief Justice V N Khare, Justice H K Sema and Justice S B Sinha directed listing of the writ petition filed by an advocate Wajahat Ansari along with an application filed by Mohad Aslam alias Bhure, who had sought review of the Apex Court's order allowing shifting of the trial from a court in Lucknow to Rae Bareilly.

"The writ petition be tagged along with the application filed in the review petition and be listed for hearing before an appropriate Bench after one week," the Bench ordered.

However, it declined to issue any orders on the repeated plea of petitioner's advocate R K Maheswari for staying the trial proceedings going on at Rae Bareilly.

The respondents mentioned in the petition filed by Ansari included Advani, Joshi, BJP leaders Uma Bharati and Vinay Katiyar, VHP leaders Ashok Singhal, Giriraj Kishore, Vishnu Hari Dalmiya and Sadhvi Rithambara, CBI and Uttar Pradesh government.

Mohd Aslam had filed an application on August 5 in the Supreme Court seeking stay of the Ayodhya demolition case trial proceedings before a Rae Bareilly court in the wake of chargesheet filed by CBI on May 30 dropping conspiracy charges against Advani and others.

In the application filed through advocate O P Sharma, the petitioner had sought initiation of action under Section 218 of IPC against CBI for filing allegedly "incorrect, truncated and diluted" chargesheet and to initiate contempt proceedings against the agency for "distorting and distracting" the judicial process.

Aslam had also sought an early hearing of his petition seeking review of the Apex Court order of November 29 2002 allowing Uttar Pradesh government to transfer the Ayodhya demolition case against Advani and others from Lucknow to Rae Bareilly.

PTI