Supreme Court Directs Gyanvapi Masjid Committee to Challenge Puja Order in Allahabad High Court

The Supreme Court directed the Gyanvapi Masjid committee on Thursday to appeal to the Allahabad High Court against a Varanasi district court's decision permitting a Hindu priest to conduct prayers before idols in a cellar of the mosque.

Lawyers representing the Anjuman Intezamia Masjid Committee sought an urgent hearing from the Supreme Court registrar. The registrar informed them that Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud had instructed them to approach the high court.

In their plea, advocates Nizam Pasha and Fuzail Ahmad Ayyubi argued that the local administration had hastily deployed a large police force to the site and was in the process of removing grills from the southern side of the mosque following the district court's order.

"There is no justification for the administration to rush through this task in the dead of night, as the trial court had already granted them one week to make the necessary arrangements," their letter stated. "The apparent reason for such undue haste is that the administration, in collaboration with the plaintiffs, seeks to prevent the Mosque Managing Committee from seeking recourse against the order by presenting them with a fait accompli."

In a significant development in the legal dispute concerning the mosque near the Kashi Vishwanath temple, the district court ruled on Wednesday that a priest could conduct prayers before idols in the Gyanvapi Masjid's cellar.

The prayers will be led periodically by a priest nominated by the Kashi Vishwanath temple trust and the petitioner, who claims his grandfather performed puja in the cellar until December 1993.

Judge A K Vishvesha ordered the local administration to make arrangements within seven days for prayers in the cellar. The ruling came a day after the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) released a report on the mosque complex. The ASI survey, conducted at the court's direction in connection with a related case, indicated that the mosque was built during Aurangzeb's reign on the remains of a Hindu temple.