The Supreme Court will on Tuesday hear a plea filed by the Anjuman Masjid Committee against a Varanasi court’s order directing videographic survey of the Gyanvapi Mosque after the court-mandated exercise finally concluded on Monday, a day ahead of the next court hearing.

The survey, which was carried out for the third consecutive day, began at 8 am and concluded at around 10:15 am. Till Sunday, 65 per cent of the survey had been completed, officials said.

Read More: Supreme Court hearing in Gyanvapi Mosque case LIVE UPDATES

The Varanasi court last week ordered the videographic survey inside the mosque, which lies next to the Kashi Vishwanath temple, to continue. The local court was hearing a year-long petition by a group of five women to allow them access to offer prayers to the Hindu deities behind the mosque.

After the survey concluded on Monday, Varanasi police commissioner Satish Ganesh told reporters, “The three-day action concluded on Monday. It was done in an ideal atmosphere where no law and order incident happened. We thank the people of Kashi for their cooperation”. He requested the media to “not pay heed to any unofficial statement”.

“After working for over two hours, the court commission concluded its work on Monday at around 10.15 am. All parties were satisfied with the work,” Varanasi District Magistrate Kaushal Raj Sharma, who had earlier called for peace before the three-day survey began, told reporters.

Sharma refused to divulge any information regarding the survey and added that the court related findings were confidential. “The court Commissioner had given directions to all parties that till the report is submitted in court on May 17 (Tuesday), no one should disclose what was found inside… Only the court is the custodian of this information. If someone has told you something, it is their personal thought. It has nothing to do with the court Commission’s action”, he said.

The survey was stalled last week after few men stopped the advocate commissioner from entering the mosque premises arguing that the survey order didn’t allow the same.

In his order on Thursday last, District Civil Judge (Senior Division) Ravi Kumar Diwakar had turned down a plea by the mosque management to replace advocate commissioner Ajay Kumar Mishra as the mosque authorities suspected that he was biased towards the Hindu petitioners.

The judge also appointed two more advocates to help the court commissioner with the survey and said it should be completed by Tuesday.
The district court had said that locks should be broken if the keys are not available to access certain areas of the complex for the survey. It also asked district authorities to register FIRs if the survey was not allowed.

The Supreme Court had on Friday last refused to grant an interim order of status quo on the survey. The top court, however, agreed to consider listing the plea of a Muslim party against the survey.

Three court-appointed advocate commissioners, five lawyers each from the two sides and an assistant besides a videography team carried out the survey.

(With inputs from PTI)