Supreme Court to hear Gyanvapi mosque case today

The Supreme Court will hear on Friday a plea to extend the protection of a section of Varanasi’s Gyanvapi mosque complex where a Shivling was purportedly found.

With the interim order of protection expiring on November 12, advocate Vishnu Shankar Jain requested Chief Justice of India Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud on Thursday to assign an urgent date for hearing of his application to continue with the earlier order.

Jain, representing some of the Hindu women who filed a suit before the Varanasi civil court seeking permission to worship at the Gyanvapi mosque, pointed out that on May 17 the top court protected the area where the Shivling was said to have been found after the Varanasi civil court allowed a videographic survey of the mosque complex adjacent to the Kashi Vishwanath temple.

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He said the May 17 order of securing the area was to remain operational for a period of eight weeks after the disposal of an application moved by the Gyanvapi mosque management committee before the civil court.

This application by the mosque management committee sought dismissal of the Hindu women’s suit on grounds of maintainability and for being violative of the Places of Worship Act, 1991. However, the civil court rejected the mosque management committee’s plea on September 12 and decided to proceed with the suit. The eight-week period fixed by the apex court got triggered after that.

On Thursday, Jain submitted before the CJI that the area needed to remain protected, and that would require another order of the court extending the previous directive.

Justice Chandrachud, after noting that the Gyanvapi case is before a special bench comprising him and justices Surya Kant and PS Narasimha, agreed to set up the bench on Friday at 3pm.

The top court is currently seized of a petition filed by the mosque management committee in May, opposing the suit of five Hindu women who demanded an unhindered right to worship Maa Shringar Gauri Sthal, a shrine for goddess Parvati located behind the western wall of the mosque complex.

The committee claims that the suit is barred by the provisions of the 1991 Act, which locks the position or “religious identity” of any place of worship as it existed on August 15, 1947. The committee had appealed against the April 2022 order of the Allahabad high court allowing the survey.

On May 20, the Supreme Court transferred the suit filed by the Hindu women from the Varanasi civil judge to the district judge for deciding the mosque management committee’s objections against the inquiry. It asked the district judge to first decide on the maintainability of the suit. Ascertainment of the religious character of a place may not be barred by the Places of Worship Act, 1991, the court observed on that day as it refrained from interfering with the Gyanvapi mosque survey.