Varanasi court permits Hindu side to offer prayers in Gyanvapi mosque cellar

Varanasi: A Varanasi court on Wednesday granted rights to the Hindu side to offer prayers in the cellar on the southern side of Gyanvapi mosque, lawyers present during the hearing said.

The court further asked the district administration to make the necessary arrangements for the prayers to be performed by the plaintiff and a priest nominated by Shri Kashi Vishwanath Temple Trust in the next seven days.

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The court on Tuesday completed the hearing and reserved its order on a plea filed by petitioner Shailendra Kumar Pathak Vyas. Pathak, the maternal grandson of Somnath Vyas, had sought the right to worship deities there.

Vyas had filed the suit – Shailendra Kumar Pathak Vyas versus Anjuman Intezamia Masajid Committee (AIMC) – through lawyers Vishnu Shankar Jain, Subhash Nandan Chaturvedi and Sudhir Tripathi on September 25 last year, urging the court to appoint the district magistrate as the receiver of the cellar.

On January 17, the court appointed the district magistrate as the receiver, directing him to keep the cellar safe and not allow any change in it and on January 24, a team led by additional district magistrate Prakash Chandra completed the proceedings of becoming the receiver of the cellar.

In the suit, the plaintiff also prayed to the court to allow him to offer prayers in the cellar as they were doing it in the cellar till it was barricaded at the order of administration in 1993.

Advocate Jain, representing the Hindu side, said that he asked the court to allow the plaintiff to perform puja in the cellar and create an entry gate for the space.

The plaintiff also alleged that people of the Anjuman Intezamia Msajid Committee, which manages the 17th century mosque, keep visiting the cellar and they may take it over. AIMC has dismissed the allegations as baseless.

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Advocate Akhlaque Ahmad for AIMC objected to the plea and argued that it was barred by the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991, which locks the religious character of shrines as they existed on August 15, 1947, except for Ayodhya.

“The cellar is a part of the Gyanvapi mosque. So worship could not be performed. Therefore, puja should not be allowed,” Ahmad argued.

He further said that he would challenge the order in the higher court. The court fixed February 8 as date of hearing on an application by the mosque committee saying that the plea should be dismissed.

Hindu petitioners have also filed several other cases related to the Gyanvapi mosque, which abuts the Kashi Vishwanath Temple, seeking prayer rights. Last week, a report by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), ordered by the court in a related petition, noted that a large Hindu temple once stood at the site before the construction of the mosque. The Masjid committee disputed the timelines of the report and said it wasn’t a final decision.

Also Read: Citing ASI report, VHP asks Muslim side to hand over Gyanvapi structure to Hindus

Varanasi, Mathura and Ayodhya are part of a decades-old ideological project pursued by Hindu groups who argue that medieval-era Islamic structures were built by demolishing temples and demand rights over those structures.

Cases by Hindu groups and individuals in Varanasi and Mathura are currently being adjudicated in courts across Uttar Pradesh, even as a larger challenge to the Place of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991 is being heard by the Supreme Court.