“The (Varanasi) court has given us 7 days. The order has come today. Further proceedings will be done once we go through it. Security will be heightened as per the situation,”
says Varanasi DM, S Raj Lingam, after a district court granted the family of a priest the right to worship Hindu deities in the Gyanvapi mosque cellar earlier today.
The order passed by District Judge A K Vishvesha reads, “District Magistrate, Varanasi is directed that puja (prayers) be done by a priest — named by the Kashi Vishwanath Trust and the plaintiffs — of idols at the western cellar, which is disputed, of building situated on plot settlement number 9130, police station Chowk, District Varanasi.
For this, arrangements must be made for barricading of iron and other things within seven days.”
In a major development on the row, Varanasi District Court Wednesday allowed prayers in the southern cellar of the Gyanvapi mosque complex.
Documents 'as claimed by Hindu side' claim fragmented statues of Hindu deities and inscriptions in Persian suggest in crystal clear manner that the Gyanvapi mosque was constructed atop the ruins of a Hindu temple.
Evev locks in Ayodhya's disputed site were opened in 1986 following a court order.
Prior to that the Ram Janma Bhoomi remained confined as a societal issue. Even the BJP plunged into the Tempe movement only in 1989. According to Justice Khan, “Prior to that (unlocking in 1986) no one beyond Ayodhya and Faizabad was aware of the dispute”.
At the subsequent stage, there was another directive from the court that allowed Shilanyas. And coincidentally, the Congress government under Rajiv with a brute majority had done it.
Closer perusals suggest even with the Kamal-ud-Din mosque in Madhya Pradesh, Shahi Idgah mosque in Mathura and also the Qutb Minar in Delhi, the lower courts have played an active role from tome to time. With regards to Hindutva claims about the Mughal-era Gyanvapi mosque, two cases before civil courts in Varanasi have sparked off a controversy.
The first case was filed in a Varanasi civil court in 1991 by devotees of “Swayambhu Lord Vishweshwar”. They claimed that the Gyanvapi mosque plot was originally occupied by a temple and asked for permission to worship on the property. The court, in 1997, said that certain portions of the plea were barred by the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991.
This act was passed during the Ayodhya temple movement and provided for the religious character of a place as it existed on August 15, 1947, to be maintained.
On appeal, a district judge set aside this order in September 1998, saying that these issues could not be decided without evidence being collected. Later in the year, the Allahabad High Court stayed these proceedings.
The stay was in force until 2020. However, relying on a 2018 Supreme Court judgment that said that a stay cannot be in force for more than six months unless the stay order is expressly extended, the civil court where the dispute was pending started hearing the case again based on an application filed by the plaintiffs. In February 2020, the Allahabad High Court stayed these proceedings again. In March 2020, it reserved its judgment.
On January 24, the Varanasi district administration had taken possession of the southern cellar of Gyanvapi mosque complex. The administration was following the orders of the Varanasi District Court, which had on January 17 appointed district magistrate of Varanasi as the receiver of the southern cellar of Gyanvapi mosque in a case filed by head priest of Acharya Ved Vyas Peeth temple, Shailendra Kumar Pathak.
The court of law weighed in on one of the country's most sensitive religious disputes Wednesday by permitting Hindu worshippers to pray inside a mosque in the city of Varanasi.
The Gyanvapi mosque is one of several Islamic houses of worship that Hindu activists, backed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party, have sought for decades to reclaim for their religion.
It was built in the 17th century by the Mughal empire in a city where Hindu faithful from across the country cremate their loved ones by the Ganges river.
The decision is the latest in a long-running legal saga over Gyanvapi's future.
This month, India's official archaeological agency said a survey of the site appeared to corroborate the belief that it was originally home to a temple, according to local news reports.
The applications added that “Shivlingam” is an object of worship for devotees of Lord Shiva and followers of Sanatana dharma in general. “The devotees have every right to perform pooja, aarti, bhog of the deity and such right cannot be denied to them,” it stated.
The Gyanvapi case was last heard by a bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud on January 16, when the court asked the Hindu plaintiffs to file a formal application after the latter made a request for a survey of the area that has remained sealed under the order of the top court.
On that day, the bench allowed a plea by the Hindu women plaintiffs seeking a directive to the Varanasi district magistrate for cleaning that section of the mosque complex. The mosque management committee did not oppose this plea.
By an order in July last year, the Varanasi district court ordered an extensive survey of the Gyanvapi mosque by ASI to ascertain whether the mosque was built over a pre-existing Hindu temple, holding that the scientific investigation was “necessary” for the “true facts” to come out. The district court order excluded the sealed area.
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