The Supreme Court today began crucial hearing on a plea seeking deferment of the Allahabad High Court verdict on the Ramjanambhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute. The hearing started before a three-judge special bench headed by Chief Justice S H Kapadia. Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi is putting forth arguments on behalf of a retired bureaucrat Ramesh Chand Tripathi on why the delivery of the verdict be postponed and efforts be made to reach an amicable settlement outside the court. Besides the Chief Justice, the special bench also includes Justices Aftab Alam and K S Radhakrishnan. Today's crucial hearing assumed significance as the Sunni Central Waqf Board and Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha, two opposite parties to the title suit, have ruled out the scope of reconciliation in their affidavits filed in the apex court.The apex court, on September 23, had stayed for a week the High Court verdict, which was to be pronounced on September 24, after the retired bureaucrat approached it to explore a possibility of an out-of-court settlement.The apex court had passed the interim stay amidst sharp differences of opinion on the issue of staying the verdict between Justices R V Raveendran and Justices H L Gokhale. In the wake of differences between them, Justices Raveendran and Gokhale issued a notice on the plea and referred the case to the Chief Justice for constituting a larger bench.Tripathi's petition pleaded for exploring the possibility of an out-of-court settlement on the 60-year-old Ram Janambhoomi-Babri Masjid title suit dispute.The apex court will also address the crisis which may arise as a fall out of the deferment of the verdict as one of the three judges of the Allahabad High Court Bench, Justice D V Sharma, who has heard the matter at length, is due to demit office on October one.