Supreme Court will consider appeal against Gyanvapi puja today
On Monday, the Supreme Court will consider a case filed by the management committee of the Gyanvapi mosque, challenging an Allahabad High Court ruling that upheld a Varanasi court judgment permitting Hindu prayers in the mosque’s southern crypt, which is next to the Kashi Vishwanath Temple.
On April 1, a bench chaired by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud will consider the plea of the Varanasi mosque’s management body, the Anjuman Intezamia Masajid Committee.
On February 26, the Allahabad High Court denied the committee’s appeal against the district court’s January 31 ruling permitting Hindus to worship at the southern basement.
A Hindu priest chosen by the Kashi Vishwanath Temple Trust is leading the prayers. Shailendra Kumar Pathak, the petitioner, said that his maternal grandfather, Somnath Vyas, who was also a priest, performed prayers in the crypt until December 1993. Even under British administration, he had maintained, his family controlled the basement.
The UP Government’s 1993 decision to end Hindu ceremonies within “Vyas Tehkhana,” which is situated in Gyanvapi’s southern crypt, was deemed “illegal” by the high court.
The HC had said that the worship would go on notwithstanding the “illegal action of the state without there being any order in writing” that had halted the rites.
The Archaeological Survey of India decided that the mosque was built on the ruins of a Hindu temple during the reign of Mughal emperor Aurangzeb after conducting a survey on the court’s authority.
