SC refuses to stay order allowing puja in cellar of Gyanvapi mosque complex
The Supreme Court on Monday refused to stay Allahabad High Court decision upholding a lower court’s order allowing Hindu prayers in the southern cellar of the Gyanvapi mosque.
The court issued notice on a plea by the Anjuman Intezamia Masjid Committee challenging the high court order dismissing its appeal against trial court order.
The high court had in February dismissed the committee’s plea, in which it had challenged the district court’s January 31 order allowing Hindus to offer prayers in the cellar.
While dismissing the plea, the court had said the move of the state government in 1993 restraining puja in the southern cellar of the mosque complex, adjacent to the Kashi Vishwanath temple, was “illegal”.
Six days after it handed litigants copies of an Archaeological Survey of India’s report which stated that “there existed a Hindu temple prior to the construction” of the Gyanvapi mosque, the Varanasi district court on January 31 directed that a priest be allowed to perform puja in the southern cellar of the mosque complex.