Top court agrees to set up bench today to take up Gyanvapi case

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court will hear on Friday a plea to extend the protection of a section of Varanasi’s Gyanvapi mosque complex where a structure which Hindu petitioners claimed to be a Shivling was found.

With the interim order of protection expiring on November 12, advocate Vishnu Shankar Jain requested Chief Justice of India Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud on Thursday to assign an urgent date for hearing of his application to continue with the earlier order.

Jain, representing some of the Hindu women who filed a suit before the Varanasi civil court seeking permission to worship at the Gyanvapi mosque, pointed out that on May 17, the top court protected the area where the Shivling was said to have been found after the Varanasi civil court allowed a videographic survey of the mosque complex adjacent to the Kashi Vishwanath temple.

He said the May 17 order of securing the area was to remain operational for a period of eight weeks after the disposal of an application moved by the Gyanvapi

mosque management committee before the civil court.

This application by the mosque management committee sought dismissal of the Hindu women’s suit on grounds of maintainability and for being violative of the Places of Worship

Act, 1991.

However, the civil court rejected the mosque management committee’s plea on September 12 and decided to proceed with the suit. The eight-week period fixed by the apex court got triggered after that.

On Thursday, Jain submitted before the CJI that the area needed to remain protected, and that would require another order of the court extending the previous directive.

Justice Chandrachud, after noting that the Gyanvapi case is before a special bench comprising him and justices Surya Kant and PS Narasimha, agreed to set up the bench at 3pm on Friday.

The top court is currently seized of a petition filed by the mosque management committee in May, opposing the suit of five Hindu women who demanded an unhindered right to worship Maa Shringar Gauri Sthal, a shrine for goddess Parvati located behind the western wall of the mosque complex.

The committee claims that the suit is barred by the provisions of the 1991 Act, which locks the position or “religious identity” of any place of worship as it existed on August 15, 1947.

ADVOCATE VISHNU SHANKAR JAIN REQUESTED THE CJI TO ASSIGN AN URGENT DATE FOR THE HEARING OF APPLICATION TO CONTINUE WITH THE EARLIER ORDER

The Gyanvapi mosque complex.