New Delhi: The Supreme Court has declined to urgently hear a plea by the Gyanvapi mosque committee challenging a district judge’s order permitting Hindu devotees to worship inside the sealed basement of the mosque and overnight execution of the order. The apex court asked the committee’s counsel to move before the Allahabad High Court.
After the district court passed the order on January 31, the Committee of Management, Anjuman Intezamia Masajid, Varanasi filed an urgent application seeking status quo at the mosque site. The lawyers of the mosque committee moved before the apex court registrar in the wee hours seeking an urgent hearing. The counsel for the mosque committee claimed that the pooja may be performed inside the mosque. The registrar told the counsel that he would take instructions from the Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud in the matter.
Early in the morning, the registrar informed the mosque committee's counsel Fuzail Ahmad Ayyubi that the CJI had asked them to approach the Allahabad High Court. The mosque committee, in the application, contended that the administration was acting in 'hot haste' soon after the Varanasi court's order to perform the pooja.
The ASI survey report of the Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi, which was made public on January 25, has kicked off a fresh wave of controversy. The report has printed photos of fragments of what appear to be statues of Hindu deities and other iconography within the mosque complex. The ASI report concluded that it can be said there existed a Hindu temple before the construction of the existing structure, that is the mosque.
