The Supreme Court Saturday put an end to the decades-old Ayodhya case by handing over to the Hindus the disputed land on which the Babri Masjid stood until it was demolished by a Hindutva mob in 1992. The Muslims would get five acres of land in the city to build a mosque, the court ruled.

It’s a voluminous judgement, running into over 1,000 pages, and there’s much to parse and analyse, to agree with and criticise. But one omission stands out immediately: the author of the judgement is not mentioned.

Where the judgement is delivered by a bench of more than one judge, the practice is to name the judge or judges who author both the majority and minority opinions. This practice is followed even for unanimous verdicts, as the Ayodhya verdict is.

What’s more, the judgement mentions that one of the five judges who delivered it – Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices SA Bobde, DY Chandrachud, Ashok Bhushan, SA Nazeer – “while being in agreement with the above reasons and directions, has recorded separate reasons on whether the disputed structure is the birth-place of Lord Ram according to the faith and belief of the Hindu devotees. The reasons of the learned judge are set out in an addendum”. This judge too is not named, however.

So, who wrote the judgement and the separate opinion?