Gyanvapi panel moves High Court after SC refuses to intervene

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, February 1

The Anjuman Intezamia Masjid Committee, which manages the Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi, on Thursday moved the Allahabad High Court against a Varanasi district court’s order allowing a Hindu priest to offer “puja” to deities kept in the mosque’s cellar after the Supreme Court refused to intervene and advised them to approach the high court.

Prayers were performed in a cellar of the complex on Wednesday night.

The committee has sought an urgent hearing of the matter as “puja” at the cellar has already started. Earlier in the day, the top court asked the committee to approach the high court against the Varanasi district court’s order on Wednesday.

A Varanasi court had on Wednesday granted a Hindu priest the right to worship deities in the Gyanvapi mosque cellar (Tahakhana) where all religious rites, rituals and practices were stopped in 1993, months after the demolition of the Babri mosque on December 6, 1992.

Varanasi District Judge AK Vishvesha had directed the District Magistrate to make arrangements in seven days to facilitate “puja” and “raag-bhog” to be offered to the deities kept in the cellar by priest Shailendra Kumar Pathak.

The court had also directed the District Magistrate to install iron bars around the deities in the cellar to facilitate “puja” by the priest suggested by the Kashi Vishwanath Trust, which manages the Kashi Vishwanath Temple, standing adjacent to the mosque that the Hindu side claimed was constructed after demolishing a pre-existing temple.

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