A fast-track court in Varanasi on Friday rejected a plea by the Hindu petitioner in the Gyanvapi mosque case seeking an additional survey of the mosque complex by the Archaeological Survey of India, reported The Times of India.
The plaintiff, advocate Vijay Shankar Rastogi, had sought directions to the archaeological body to use invasive excavation methods to access the purported remains of an ancient Hindu temple under the mosque’s central dome.
On January 31, the Varanasi district court allowed Hindus to offer prayers in the basement of the complex after an Archaeological Survey of India report claimed that a Hindu temple that existed at the site was destroyed in the 17th century and built over.
The Hindu litigants have claimed that an oval-shaped object found on the mosque premises in May 2022 is a shivling, a representation of the Hindu deity Shiva. However, the caretaker committee of the mosque has maintained that the object was a defunct fountainhead in the wazu khana, or ablution tank.
As part of Rastogi’s plea, the fast-track court on Friday also considered a request for the archaeological body to investigate the so-called shivling to determine its “age, size, monumental and archaeological design or style…and what materials have been used for building the same”.
The court, however, cited previous orders of the Allahabad High Court and the Supreme Court barring any excavation at the site.
“The Supreme Court and the Allahabad High Court also ordered to conduct the survey by using non-invasive methodology and not to use excavation technique and no destruction of the property will be done,” observed Civil Judge Yugal Sharma. “Apart from this, no reasons for further survey are cited by plaintiffs in their application.”
Sharma also pointed out that the Archaeological Survey of India’s report in the matter is yet to be legally examined and that the so-called shivling has been protected by an order of the Supreme Court.
In May, the Supreme Court refused to stay the Varanasi district court’s order allowing Hindus to offer prayers in the sealed basement of the mosque complex. It also directed that Hindus should enter the mosque complex from the south and pray in the cellar while Muslims pray on the northern side. This arrangement is expected to continue till the case is decided.
The Supreme Court’s directive came in response to a petition by the management committee of the mosque complex challenging the Allahabad High Court’s December order on the maintainability of lawsuits seeking the “restoration” of a Hindu temple at the site.
The High Court held that the suits were not barred by the Places of Worship Act, which prohibits any changes to the religious character of a place of worship in independent India.
In July 2023, the Varanasi district court ordered the archaeological survey of the mosque complex in response to a petition by a group of Hindu litigants seeking the right to hold prayers inside the mosque compound.
The Gyanvapi mosque complex has four cellars in its basement. One of them is still owned by the Vyas family of priests who used to live there. They had argued that, as hereditary priests, they should be allowed to offer prayers in that cellar.
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