Gyanvapi row: Allahabad HC to discuss mosque committee’s challenge to Varanasi court verdict on Dec 5
In an appeal filed by the Gyanvapi Masjid management on December 5, the Allahabad High Court set a date for further hearing on December 5 regarding the maintainability of a petition seeking permission to perform regular prayers at the idol of a deity within the mosque complex, challenged by a Varanasi court.
A brief hearing in the case had been held by the high court on Tuesday, after which it adjourned the hearing to Wednesday.
Intezamia Masjid, the management committee of Gyanvapi mosque, challenged the Varanasi court’s decision rejecting its objection to the maintainability of the lawsuit filed by five Hindu women seeking permission to worship Shringar Gauri and other deities whose idols are located on an outer wall of the mosque.
Varanasi’s district judge dismissed the appeal on September 12.
A second revision petition filed by Laxmi Devi and others challenging the Varanasi district judge’s order in which he had refused the request for carbon dating of a ‘Shivling’ claimed to have been found in the Gyanvapi mosque complex was also scheduled for further hearing on January 18, 2023. The two pleas heard on the case was heard by Justice J. J. Munir on Wednesday.
Earlier this month, Varanasi District Judge A K Vishvesh turned down a petition seeking a scientific investigation and carbon dating of the Shivaling, citing Supreme Court directives that it should be kept secure and untampered with.
In a court-mandated videography survey of the mosque premises near the “wazookhana”, a small reservoir used by Muslim devotees to perform ritual ablutions before offering prayers, four of the five Hindu parties had sought an analysis of the carbon dating of the shavling found there.
In its revision petition, the petitioner seeks to determine the nature of the construction beneath the ‘Shivling’ discovered on May 16, 2022, by undertaking an appropriate survey or excavation.
According to the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1958, the Hindu parties have also requested scientific investigation through carbon dating to determine the age, nature and other components of the Shivling.
