Allahabad HC declines interim stay on Varanasi court order allowing puja in Gyanvapi mosque

LUCKNOW, FEB 2: The Anjuman Intezamia Masjid (AIM), the Gyanvapi mosque management committee, on Friday failed to get relief as the Allahabad High Court refused to allow the committee’s plea seeking an interim stay on puja being performed in the southern cellar of the mosque premises.

The High Court, however, issued a directive to the state government to maintain law and order situation in the area. Significantly, puja had commenced inside the southern cellar (Vyas ji ka Tehkhana) on the night of January 31, just a few hours after the Varanasi District Court allowed the Hindu side to perform the puja of the deities in the cellar.

Hearing the AIM’s plea against Varanasi District Court’s January 31 order, the High Court bench of Justice Rohit Ranjan Agarwal refused to grant an interim stay on ongoing puja inside the cellar saying that the AIM had not challenged the District Court’s January 17 order appointing the Varanasi District Magistrate as the receiver of the cellar. It had not objected to the appointment of DM as cellar’s receiver, said the bench.

Notably, the Varanasi DM, in compliance with the district court’s January 17 order, took possession of the cellar on January 23. The district judge Dr AK Vishvesha, in his January 31 order, had also directed the Varanasi District Magistrate/ receiver of the cellar, to make suitable arrangements in the steel grill around the cellar for the performance of puja.

In compliance with the court order, the district administration removed the grill around the cellar and allowed the priest named by the Shree Kashi Vishwanath Temple Trust to perform puja which commenced late on January 31 night and continued till early morning of February 1. Subsequently, the AIM moved the Allahabad High Court seeking a stay on the puja.

Meanwhile, the High Court asked the AIM to move an amended plea to challenge the January 17 order of the Varanasi district court first. The court granted AIM time till February 6 to move the amended plea. The High Court also directed the Advocate General of UP to maintain law and order in the area.

It may be noted that the AIM had initially moved the Supreme Court of India to challenge the District Court’s order allowing puja inside the cellar and had sought an urgent hearing. However, the apex court had refused an urgent hearing for the AIM and directed it to go to the Allahabad High Court with its plea.

The district court has issued the order on the plea of the head priest of Acharya Ved Vyas Peeth temple, Shailendra Kumar Pathak Vyas, seeking worship of Shringar Gauri and other visible and invisible deities in the cellar of the mosque. Vyas is the scion of the family which was performing puja in this cellar till December 1993.

The plea stated that Vyas’s maternal grandfather, priest Somnath Vyas, used to perform prayers there until 1993, when the cellar was closed by the authorities.

Following the Varanasi court order, Muslim side lawyer Akhlaq Ahmed said, “The order has overlooked the Advocate Commissioner report of 2022, ASI’s report, and the decision of 1937, which was in our favour. The Hindu side has not placed any evidence that prayers were held before 1993. There is no such idol in the place.”

The mosque has four ‘tahkhanas’ (cellars) in the basement, of which one is still in the possession of the Vyas family, who used to live there. Vyas had petitioned that, as a hereditary pujari, he be allowed to enter the tahkhana and resume puja.

The ASI survey, ordered by the same court in connection with a related case, suggested that the mosque was constructed during Aurangzeb’s rule over the remains of a Hindu temple.

-PTI