Gyanvapi outcome will set a precedent

This week, the Supreme Court will hear two important petitions related to the Gyanvapi mosque dispute. The first, filed by the Anjuman Intezamia Masjid Committee, which manages the 17th-century structure, to nullify a controversial survey of the complex ordered by a local civil court, and the second by a Hindu lawyer asking for rights to pray before a shivling discovered inside the mosque premises. The mosque committee says that the structure is part of a ceremonial ablution fountain, and not a holy Hindu structure.

This is a crucial phase in the controversial case that has ratcheted up communal tensions, dug up old animosities, and appeared to provide a template for Right-wing activists to claim worship rights at Islamic holy sites. Moreover, the issues dredged up by this case – filed by five Hindu women seeking the right to pray to idols of Hindu deities installed inside the premises of the mosque complex – are pertinent in a clutch of other litigation, especially those involving a dispute between Mathura’s Krishna Janmabhoomi temple and the Shahi Eidgah mosque.

As noted on these pages before, this newspaper believes at some point, the Supreme Court will need to decide on the substantive legal aspects of the case, crucially whether the 1991 Places of Worship Act bars attempts by the Hindu side to lay claim to the mosque or whether an exemption carved into the law permits such petitions. For a case that is likely to become the touchstone for similar claims in the future, such clarity is important and can only be provided by the judiciary, which can also ask the central government to make its stand clear on the jurisdiction of the law.