Case of Gyanvapi: Supreme Court to Consider Mosque Committee’s Appeal Disputeing Allahabad High Court’s Temple Restoration Order
New Delhi: The Allahabad High Court’s ruling that litigation for the “restoration” of a temple where the mosque is located in Varanasi are maintainable was upheld by the Supreme Court on Friday, after the Gyanvapi management committee’s appeal. A bench made up of Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, together with Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud, said, “We will tag this with the main case.”
The body that oversees the operations of the Gyanvapi mosque, Anjuman Intezamia Masjid, submitted the application with the highest court. The Allahabad High Court rejected arguments contesting the maintainability of a 1991 lawsuit calling for the “restoration” of a temple at the location of the Gyanvapi mosque on December 19 of last year.
A contested place’s “religious character” may only be determined by the court, according to the HC.
It had rejected five such applications that the mosque committee and the Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board had submitted over the years, both against a survey of the mosque’s grounds and on maintainability.
The House of Commons had ruled that the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991, which prohibits “conversion” of a place’s “religious character” from what it was on August 15, 1947, does not prevent the complaint brought before the district court. Petitioners filed the lawsuit in an attempt to get permission to pray in the Gyanvapi mosque, which is next to the Kashi Vishwanath temple. Its maintainability has been contested by Muslim claimants, who cited the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act.
