Varanasi Court rejects petition seeking stay on ASI survey of Gyanvapi Mosque

The court of the Varanasi district judge on Thursday rejected the Anjuman Intezamia Masajid Committee’s plea seeking an order to stop the ongoing survey by Archaelogical Survey of India (ASI) in Gyanvapi mosque, Varanasi. The court completed the hearing on the application on September 21.

Rajesh Mishra, the Uttar Pradesh government’s special counsel for Shringar Gauri-Gyanvapi case, “The court of district judge Ajay Krishna Vishwesha rejected the application of Anjuman Intezamia Masajid Committee seeking an order to stop the ASI survey.”

According to Mishra, the court said that it could not interfere in the orders of the superior courts. .... the application is rejected.

Akhlaque Ahmad, counsel for AIMC, said, “After receiving the copy of the order, we will consult counsel for the committee in the higher courts and seek their guidance. Thereafter, we will challenge the order in the higher court.”

On August 9, AIMC, which manages the Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi, filed the application in the district court. The committee prayed for stopping the ongoing survey by the Archeological Survey of India in the barricaded area of the Gyanvapi mosque complex, excluding its sealed section.

Filing the application, the counsel for the committee, Mumtaz Ahmad, had said that the plaintiffs 2 to 5 (four Hindu women plaintiffs in Shringar Gauri-Gyanvapi case) didn’t deposit the amount of the expenditure for the ASI survey. As the ASI hasn’t given any vocal or written information to AIMC about the survey, the proceedings of the survey were against the rule, the counsel argued and prayed to the court to pass an order to stop the ongoing ASI survey.

The Varanasi court had initially ordered the survey on July 21. In compliance with that order, the ASI had conducted the survey for over four-and-a-half hours on July 24 after which the Supreme Court the same day (July 24) halted the exercise till 5pm on July 26 and granted liberty to the Anjuman Intezamia Masajid Committee (AIMC) to approach the Allahabad high court. When the mosque committee moved the high court on July 25, it extended the stay on the survey. The high court gave its ruling on August 3 and allowed the exercise to go ahead. AIMC moved the Supreme Court against the high court order, but the top court refused to stay the survey on August 4.

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