Supreme Court to hear plea against puja at Gyanvapi today

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New Delhi, March 31

The Supreme Court will on Monday hear Gyanvapi mosque management committee’s petition against an Allahabad High Court verdict upholding a Varanasi court’s order allowing Hindu prayers at the southern cellar of the mosque, adjacent to Kashi Vishwanath Temple.

A Bench led by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud will on April 1 hear the petition of Anjuman Intezamia Masajid Committee, which manages the Varanasi mosque.

The Allahabad High Court had on February 26 dismissed the committee’s petition against the district court’s January 31 order allowing Hindus to offer prayers at the southern cellar.

The prayers are being conducted by a Hindu priest nominated by Kashi Vishwanath Temple Trust and petitioner Shailendra Kumar Pathak, who claimed that his maternal grandfather Somnath Vyas, also a priest, offered prayers at the cellar till December 1993. He had claimed that his family had the control of the cellar even during the British rule.

The high court had said the UP Government’s 1993 decision to stop Hindu rituals inside “Vyas Tehkhana”, located at the southern cellar of Gyanvapi, was “illegal”.

The worship rituals were stopped by “illegal action of the state without there being any order in writing”, the HC had noted, saying the worship would continue.

The Archaeological Survey of India, which conducted a survey on the court’s order, had concluded the mosque was constructed over the remains of a Hindu temple during Mughal emperor Aurangzeb’s rule.