The Supreme Court has decided to hear from February 26 the politically sensitive Ramjanmabhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute, an official notification issued by the court registry said.

The notification said the five-judge constitution bench of Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi and Justices S.A. Bobde, D.Y. Chandrachud, Ashok Bhushan and S. Abdul Nazeer would assemble at 10.30am at the CJI’s Court Hall No. 1 for taking up the matter.

The court will take up the batch of petitions — and cross-petitions — that have challenged a 2010 Allahabad High Court order dividing the disputed site into three parts.

The hearing had initially been scheduled for January 29 but was cancelled after Justice Bobde, the next in line to be the Chief Justice of India, fractured his leg and had to go on medical leave.

Earlier, the bench had to be reconstituted on January 25 after one of the judges, Justice U.U. Lalit, recused himself following objections from the Sunni Wakf Board, one of the main parties to the dispute.

The Chief Justice had dropped Justice N.V. Ramana, also a future CJI, from the earlier bench. Instead, Justices Bhushan and Abdul Nazeer have been included because they had heard the matter as part of an earlier three-judge bench.