Gyanvapi: Allahabad HC rejects Muslims’ plea to stop Hindus’ puja
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: The Allahabad High Court on Monday dismissed an appeal filed by the Anjuman Intezamia Masjid Committee, which looks after the affairs of the mosque, challenging the Varanasi district court’s order to allow puja (prayers) in the southern cellar of the Gyanvapi mosque in the Kashi Vishwanath Temple complex in Varanasi.
“Prima facie I find that act of the State Government since the year 1993 restraining the Vyas family from performing religious worship and rituals and also by the devotees was a continuous wrong being perpetuated,” Justice Rohit Ranjan Agarwal said in the Monday order, according to the media reports, quoting Hari Shankar Jain, the Hindus’ counsel.
On January 31, the Varanasi court allowed the Hindus to resume puja in the southern cellar of the complex, which was opened the same night and a priest started performing prayers.
The petition requesting resumption of the puja was filed by Shailendra Kumar Pathak, the head priest of Acharya Ved Vyas Peeth temple, who added that his grandfather Somnath Vyas, also a priest, used to perform prayers in the complex until December 1993.
The mosque committee challenged the district court order in the Supreme Court which re-directed it to approach the Allahabad High Court instead. The committee maintained that the Vyasji ka Tehkhana (cellar) was under their possession as being a part of the mosque premises and that the Vyas family or anyone else did not have any right to worship inside the cellar.
The district court had on January 17 appointed the Varanasi district magistrate as the receiver of the mosque’s southern cellar in a case filed by Pathak. On January 25, the Archaeological Survey of India’s (ASI) report on the scientific study of the mosque complex was handed over to the plaintiffs, concluding that a Hindu temple existed there before the construction of the existing structure at the site.
The court had ordered the ASI to survey the mosque complex, barring the “wazukhana” used for Muslims’ ritual ablutions before namaz on an earlier petition by five women devotees.
The Mulayam Singh government’s 1993 move to stop Hindu prayers in one of the cellars of Varanasi’s Gyanvapi Mosque was “illegal,” the Allahabad High Court said on Monday.
The government officials had sealed the cellar in the aftermath of the demolition of the disputed Babri Masjid in Ayodhya in December 1992.
“The worship and rituals which continued to be performed in the cellar by the Vyas family until 1993 was stopped by illegal action of State without there being any order in writing,” the High Court said.
“Article 25 of the Constitution of India grants freedom of religion. The Vyas family who continued the performance of religious worship and rituals in the cellar could not be denied access by oral order. A citizen’s right guaranteed under Article 25 cannot be taken away by arbitrary action of State,” the order added.
It noted that the cellar had been in the Vyas family’s possession since the year 1551 and the family had submitted documents to prove how it was willed down the generations.
The court also noted that a 1936 map filed by the then-state government showed the cellar and that the Muslims’ body which claimed it had failed to establish prima facie possession over the cellar.
“Failure of the appellant to establish prima facie possession over the disputed property, and plaintiff succeeding in building up a strong prima facie case negating the stand of the appellant, leads to the undeniable situation that stopping worship and performance of rituals by the devotees in the cellar would be against their interest,” the court said.
The High Court also noted that an attempt was made to malign the image of the lower court “on the ground that the officer concerned had passed the order on the last day of working.” It said the district court had already asked the administration to take control in an order dated January 17, 2024, and the January 31 order was only to correct an accidental slip.
“Considering the overall submissions advanced by the respective counsel of the parties and after analyzing the material on record, I find that the appellant has not made out any case for interfering in the order dated 17.01.2024 and 31.01.2024 appointing the District Magistrate, Varanasi as Receiver and arranging to carry out worship and rituals in Vyasji ka tehkhana (cellar) under his supervision by the priest, so appointed,” the court said, noting that prayers in the cellar started on February 1, 2024.
