The Anjuman Intezamia Masjid Committee filed a petition against a Varanasi court order allowing Hindu devotees to worship inside the sealed basement of the Gyanvapi mosque complex, but the Allahabad High Court on Friday denied the committee’s request for relief.
The Advocate General was instructed by a single bench of Justice Rohit Ranjan Aggarwal to uphold law and order both inside and outside the Gyanvapi mosque. The case’s next hearing is scheduled for February 6. The mosque committee had previously filed a Supreme Court petition, contesting a district judge’s decision to permit puja in the Gyanvapi mosque’s southern cellar.
The Allahabad High Court was requested to be contacted instead by the mosque committee. Senior attorneys SFA Naqvi and Puneet Gupta, speaking on behalf of the mosque committee, informed the High Court during the hearing that the Hindu side was requesting one of the four cellars, where Vyas Ka Tekhana (cellar) is situated in the basement for prayer. The Muslim side claimed that on January 17, when a District Magistrate was designated as a “receiver” of that section of the mosque, an application submitted by the Hindu side was approved. The Hindu side’s advocate, Vishnu Shankar Jain, refuted the mosque committee’s petition, claiming that it had not contested the orders from January 17 or January 31.
The mosque committee did not contest the January 17 order, nor did it stop the district court’s decision to permit puja on the Gyanvapi mosque grounds, the High Court ruled, declining to grant any relief. Days after four female petitioners moved the Supreme Court to request an excavation and survey of the mosque’s sealed portion, the High Court made its decision. The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) report, which the Hindu side claimed showed that a sizable Hindu temple existed prior to the construction of the Gyanvapi mosque, prompted the top court to hear the plea.
A number of Hindu activists contest the claim that a temple once stood at the site of the disputed Gyanvapi mosque and was destroyed in the 17th century by the Mughal emperor.
The Muslim side’s letter to the Supreme Court stated that the administration, working with the Hindu petitioners, is attempting to prevent the mosque managing committee from using their legal remedies against the said order by giving them a fait accompli, or something that has already happened and cannot be undone. This is the clear reason for the unseemly haste. Hindu devotees were permitted by a Varanasi court to worship in the Gyanvapi mosque’s enclosed basement. Hindu devotees can now offer prayers at “Vyas Ka Tekhana,” a restricted area within the mosque, in accordance with the court’s ruling.
During the hearing, the court also asked the Shri Kashi Vishwanath Temple Trust to designate a priest for the “puja” and instructed the district administration to arrange all necessary logistics for the devotees to perform it.
