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New Delhi: It was in 1991- a year before the Babri Masjid demolition took place- that a group of priests in Varanasi filed a petition in the court, seeking permission to worship on the Gyanvapi mosque premises. Thirty years later in 2021, the Allahabad High Court stayed proceedings in the Kashi Vishwanath Mandir-Gyanvapi Masjid case in a Varanasi court, suspending a controversial archaeological survey of the premises to determine whether a Hindu temple was partially razed to build the 17th-century mosque, according to a report by news agency IANS. The Gyanvapi Dispute remains unresolved and continues even today; in a latest update, the Supreme Court has refused to interfere with the order of the Allahabad High Court and has dismissed the plea of the Mosque Committee which requested for a transfer of the case.
The Supreme Court on Friday refused to interfere with the order passed by the Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court, Justice Pritinker Diwaker, transferring the case relating to the Kashi Vishwanath temple-Gyanvapi Mosque dispute to another bench from a single-judge bench. A bench of Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, Justices JB Pardiwala, and Manoj Misra dismissed an appeal filed by Anjuman Intezemia Masjid, which manages the Gyanvapi mosque, challenging the administrative decision of the high court chief justice’s transfer order.
The Chief Justice of the High Court, in his administrative decision, withdrew the Gyanvapi case from a single-judge bench, which has been hearing it since 2021. The single-judge was hearing the plea of the Masjid Committee challenging the maintainability of the suits filed by some Hindu worshippers seeking the right of worship in the Gyanvapi mosque which is barred by the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act 1991.
The CJI bench perused the reasons for the transfer of the case and observed that it did not want to read it in open court.”We should not interfere with the order of the chief justice of the High Court. In High Courts, it is a very standard practice. This must lie in the realm of the Chief Justice of the High Court,” the bench observed. Senior advocate Huzefa Ahmadi, representing the mosque committee, told the apex court that Justice Prakash Padia had completed the hearing in the matter and reserved the judgment, however, the Chief Justice withdrew the case from the judge, citing the reason that the judge could not have retained the matter despite the roster change.
In April last year, a Varanasi court ordered a video survey of the Gyanvapi mosque complex after the petition. The report of the survey was initially ordered to be submitted by May 10. However, a delay was caused after the order was challenged by Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board and the mosque committee. The Gyanvapi mosque survey was concluded on May 16. The Hindu side in the matter has claimed that a ‘Shivling’ was found inside a reservoir on the mosque complex during the survey. The Muslim side, however, dismissed the claim and said it was only a ‘fountain’.
The Kashi Vishwanath Temple-Gyanvapi Mosque dispute was raised by the BJP, the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the RSS during the campaign for the construction of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya along with the Krishna Janmabhoomi-Shahi Idgah Masjid in Mathura. They claimed that all three mosques were built after demolishing Hindu temples. The controversy has taken an expected turn as both the sides- Hindus and Muslims- have firmed up their stand. UP Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya has said that the survey had lifted the veil on the truth.
(Inputs from ANI)
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