SC to hear plea against Gyanvapi survey today
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court will hear on Tuesday a petition filed by the managing committee of the Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi, challenging a survey of its premises ordered by a local court based on a plea that some idols of Hindu deities were present inside the premises.
The hearing will come on a day the Varanasi civil court is scheduled to receive the report of the survey, which was ordered on a plea by five Hindu women who claimed the right to worship some deities installed within the mosque premises, which abuts the Kashi Vishwanath Temple. On Monday, the civil court sealed a section of the Gyanvapi mosque complex after Hindu petitioners claimed that a Shivling was found in a pond on the premises.
The petition by the Anzuman Intezamia Masajid Committee was mentioned on Friday before a bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) NV Ramana but the apex court refused to order status quo as it was yet to read the petition. The top court had assured the lawyers appearing for the Gyanvapi mosque that after going through the matter, it would be listed.
The matter will now be taken up on Tuesday by a bench of justices Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud and PS Narasimha.
The appeal was filed by advocate Fuzail Ahmad Ayyubi against an order of the Allahabad high court on April 21 allowing the survey of the mosque premises along with videography by advocate commissioner Ajai Kumar Mishra.
The mosque committee argued that the suit pending before the civil court, which was filed last year, violated the Places of Worship Act, 1991 and was an attempt to disturb communal peace and harmony.
The 1991 Places of Worship Act clamped status quo retrospectively on the character of places of worship as existing on August 15, 1947. Only the Ram Janmabhoomi-babri Masjid site in Ayodhya was kept out of the purview of the law.
The law received the approval of the top court in the landmark 2019 verdict that paved the way for the construction of a Ram Temple in Ayodhya. “In preserving the character of places of public worship, Parliament has mandated in no uncertain terms that history and its wrongs shall not be used as instruments to oppress the present and the future,” the court held.
The 2019 verdict further spelt out that the Places of Worship Act was a legislative intervention to preserve “non-retrogression” as an essential feature of India’s secular values, and to protect equality of all faiths as an essential constitutional value, a norm which has the part of being the basic feature of the Constitution. The Anzuman Intezamia Masajid Committee argued that as the mosque existed since time immemorial, it enjoyed protection under the 1991 law.
“We have filed in relation to a survey which has been directed to be conducted in relation to the Varanasi property. This (Gyanvapi) has been a mosque since time immemorial and this is clearly interdicted by the Places of Worship Act,” the senior advocate said.
The committee further argued that the present suit filed by five women was aimed to skirt a stay order by the Allahabad high court in September 2021 on a 1991 suit demanding a survey of the premises by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI).
The current survey was ordered by the Varanasi civil court on April 8 (appointing commissioner) and April 26 (ordering videography of site) on a 2021 petition by five women who sought worship rights at the Maa Shringar Gauri Sthal, a shrine for Hindu goddess Parvati located behind the western wall of the mosque. The exercise commenced on May 6 in presence of all the parties amid tight security, triggering protests. But on May 7, the survey could not continue following objections from advocates of the mosque management committee.