AIMC plea on Gyanvapi cellar: HC to deliver verdict on Feb 26
The appeal before the high court was filed by the Anjuman Intezamia Masajid Committee, which manages Gyanvapi Mosque in Varanasi on February 1, 2024 soon after the supreme court refused to urgently hear the mosque Committee’s plea against the order allowing Puja in Vyas Ji ka Tehkhana.
PRAYAGRAJ: The Allahabad high court on Monday (February 26) will deliver a judgment in the Gyanvapi Mosque committee’s appeal challenging the Varanasi district judge’s order, dated January 31, 2024, allowing ‘Puja’ In ‘Vyas Tehkhana’ (southern cellar of Gyanvapi mosque).
A bench of Justice Rohit Ranjan Agarwal on February 15 reserved the judgment after four-day hearing. Advocate general Ajay Kumar Misra appeared for the state.
The appeal before the high court was filed by the Anjuman Intezamia Masajid Committee, which manages Gyanvapi Mosque in Varanasi on February 1, 2024 soon after the supreme court refused to urgently hear the mosque Committee’s plea against the order allowing Puja in Vyas Ji ka Tehkhana.
It has been the stand of the Committee that the Vyas Tehkhana was under their possession as being a part of the Mosque premises and that the Vyas family or anyone else do not have any right to worship inside the Tehkhana. However, hindu side claimed that, until 1993, the Vyas family conducted religious ceremonies in the basement. But, in compliance with a directive from the state government, the religious practices were discontinued.
On January 31, 2024, the district judge paved the way for the worship of Hindu deities inside the Vyas Tehkhana by allowing an application in the suit filed by plaintiff Shailendra Kumar Pathak Vyas seeking worship of Shringar Gauri and other visible and invisible deities in the cellar of Gyanvapi mosque and for the appointment of the district magistrate as the receiver of the cellar in the southern side of Mosque.
