The Allahabad High Court on Monday dismissed a petition challenging the Varanasi district court’s decision to allow Hindu prayers in a cellar of the Gyanvapi mosque.
Advocate Vishnu Shankar Jain, representing the Hindu side, told the media after the high court’s decision, “Today, the Allahabad High Court has dismissed the first appeal from orders of Anjuman Intezamia wherein the order of 17th and 31st January passed by Varanasi District Court was under challenge before Allahabad HC. The crux of the matter is that the ongoing puja in the ‘Vyas Tehkhana’ of Gyanvapi complex will continue…”
The Varanasi district court had on January 31 ruled that a priest can offer prayers in the southern cellar of the Gyanvapi mosque. The order was delivered on the petition of Shailendra Kumar Pathak, who said his maternal grandfather Somnath Vyas offered prayers till December 1993. Pathak had requested that, as a hereditary pujari, he be allowed to enter the tahkhana and resume pooja.
Also Read: Gyanvapi case: Varanasi court allows Hindu petitioners to offer prayers at sealed mosque basement
The mosque committee refuted the petitioner’s version. The committee said no idols existed in the cellar, so there was no question of prayers being offered there till 1993.
The Anjuman Intezamia Masajid Committee, which manages the mosque, had moved an urgent application before the Supreme Court seeking its intervention against the district court’s order, but was told to first approach the Allahabad High Court.
The high court reserved its order after hearing both parties on February 15.
Also Read: No stay on puja inside Gyanvapi mosque complex, rules Allahabad High Court
The Varanasi district court directed that a priest be allowed to perform puja in the southern cellar after the Archeological Survery of India (ASI) report on the mosque complex was made public. ASI stated in its report that “there existed a Hindu temple prior to the construction” of the Gyanvapi mosque.
The ASI survey, ordered by the same court, in connection with a related case, suggested that the mosque was constructed during Aurangzeb’s rule over the remains of a Hindu temple.