The Allahabad High Court on Monday dismissed the Gyanvapi mosque management committee’s appeals challenging the Varanasi district judge’s order that allowed puja in the southern cellar of the Gyanvapi masjid complex.
Bar and Bench reported that the verdict was delivered by Justice Rhit Agarwal.
Last month, on the January 17 order the district magistrate was appointed as the receiver of the ‘Vyas Tehkhana’ or southern cellar cellar of the mosque and January 31 order by which he allowed ‘puja’ to be performed there. The verdict was made after the Archaeological Survey of India stated that “there existed a Hindu temple prior to the construction”. On February 1, puja began in intervals at night, thus laying the ground stone of the temple.
The Anjuman intezamia Masjid Committee, that manages the affairs of the Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi had put an urgent application before the Supreme seeking an intervention on the verdict by the district court, however the committee was asked to approach Allahabad Court first.
Dismissing both the appeals, Justice Rohit Ranjan Agarwal said, “After going through the entire records of the case and considering the arguments of the parties concerned, the court did not find any ground to interfere in the judgment passed by the the district judge on January 17, appointing the Varanasi district magistrate as the receiver of the property, as well as the order dated January 31 by which the district court permitted puja in the tehkhana.”
Justice Agarwal had reserved his verdict in the matter on February 15 after hearing the counsel for the parties.
History
On Febraury 1, the court issued the order in favor of Hindus after an application by Shailendra Kumar Pathak, a local priest of the Acharya Veda Vyasapeeth temple, seeking rights to worship supposedly visible and invisible deities like Maa Shringar Gauri, which he said had a temple at the bottom of the temple.
Muslims, on the other hand, had been aggrieved by the verdict and had expressed their intention to challenge it in the Allahabad High Court. The development added another layer to the legal battle over the disputed site, escalating a historic feud that has been going on for years.
- 1991: First lawsuit filed by Hindu priests seeking permission to worship at a shrine inside the mosque.
- 1998: Allahabad High Court dismisses the petition.
- 2019: New petition filed by Hindu lawyers seeking an archaeological survey of the mosque.
- 2020: Archaeologists submit a report to the court finding evidence of a Hindu temple at the site of the mosque.
- 2021: Allahabad High Court stays the proceedings in the lower court.
- 2022: Varanasi district court orders a fresh video graphics survey of the mosque.
- 2022: Videographic survey completed.
- 2023: Varanasi district court expected to deliver its verdict.
- 2024: Varanasi court allowed Hindu devotees to offer prayers at Gyanvapi
