The Supreme Court will hear on Monday a plea from the Gyanvapi mosque management committee challenging an Allahabad High Court ruling affirming a lower court’s decision permitting Hindu prayers in the mosque’s southern cellar.
Anjuman Intezamia Masajid Committee, responsible for the Gyanvapi mosque’s management in Varanasi, filed the petition against the High Court’s February 26 judgment.
The High Court dismissed the committee’s plea contesting a district court order from January 31 allowing Hindu worship in the cellar.
In its ruling on February 26, the High Court deemed the Uttar Pradesh government’s 1993 halt of worship rituals inside the “Vyas Tehkhana” as “illegal.” It rejected appeals from the mosque management committee challenging a Varanasi district judge’s January 17 order appointing the district magistrate as the receiver of the “Vyas Tehkhana” and the January 31 order allowing ‘puja’ to be performed there.
The High Court ordered the continuation of worship activities in the “Vyas Tehkhana,” located next to the Kashi Vishwanath temple.
A survey by the Archaeological Survey of India indicated that the Gyanvapi mosque was constructed during Mughal emperor Aurangzeb’s reign atop the remnants of a Hindu temple.
On January 31, the district court ruled that a Hindu priest could conduct prayers before idols in the mosque’s southern cellar.
Presently, worship is being led by a Hindu priest appointed by the Kashi Vishwanath temple trust and petitioner Shailendra Kumar Pathak, whose maternal grandfather, Somnath Vyas, also performed prayers in the cellar until December 1993.
Pathak claimed that worship was halted during the tenure of former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav after the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992.
During the trial court hearing, the Muslim side contested the petitioner’s account, denying the existence of idols in the cellar and challenging the petitioner’s claim of control over the basement during British rule.