Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Aug 4: The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the Allahabad High Court’s order and allowed non-invasive survey of the Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI).
The Supreme Court also directed the ASI not to conduct any excavations and gave it four weeks’ time to complete the survey and submit its report to the Varanasi district court which had ordered the “scientific survey” of the mosque on July 21. The Gyanvapi mosque survey by the country’s top archaeology body should be done using a “non-invasive method,” the Supreme Court order said.
The Anjuman Intezamia Masjid Committee, which manages the Gyanvapi Mosque, had challenged the district court’s survey order in the Allahabad High Court. On Thursday, the high court dismissed the request by the mosque committee, which sought to stop the district court’s order directing the ASI to conduct the survey to determine if the mosque was built on a pre-existing temple. The committee finally went to the Supreme Court, which heard the matter urgency on Friday.
The mosque committee regretted that the ASI survey of the Gyanvapi mosque would go into history and would “reopen wounds of the past.” “… History has taught us something. What happened in December 1992, that raises suspicion and distrust at every step,” the mosque committee’s lawyer Huzefa Ahmadi said. “The ASI survey intends to go into the history as to what happened 500 years ago. It would reopen wounds of past,” Ahmadi said.
“Let’s not get into the past now,” a bench of Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra replied.
After the Supreme Court ordered the ASI to use a non-invasive method in its survey, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for ASI and the UP government, promised no excavation work would be done and no structure inside the mosque would be harmed.
The ASI today resumed its scientific survey of the Gyanvapi compound. The survey began at 7 am; it stopped for two hours between 12 pm and 2 pm to allow for Friday prayers. A large number of security personnel has been deployed by the district authorities to ensure law and order near the Gyanvapi complex. The district magistrate and the police chief of Varanasi remained personally present in the complex to maintain the law and order.
The mosque committee, represented by senior advocate Ahmadi, argued that the survey, originally ordered by the District Judge to find out if a Hindu temple existed underneath, would go against the grain of the Places of Worship Act.
However, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta and senior advocate Madhavi Divan submitted that the ASI would not conduct any excavation inside the premises and argued that the ASI’s job was to preserve history and not destroy it.
Survey of the Gyanvapi mosque, located next to the iconic Kashi Vishwanath temple, was ordered over the petition by four women claiming that the 17th-century mosque has been constructed over a temple. Hindu activists claim that a temple existed earlier at the site of the mosque and was demolished in the 17th century on the order of Mughal emperor Aurangzeb.
The survey was first ordered by the Varanasi district court after the petitioners claimed that a survey was the only way to determine if a temple had been razed to construct the landmark mosque.
In its ruling, the court said, “The director of ASI is directed to conduct a detailed scientific investigation by using GPR survey, excavation, Dating method and other modern techniques of the present structure to find out as to whether same has been constructed over a pre-existing structure of Hindu temple.”
The survey team will conduct tests to determine the age of the pillars as well as the western wall of the mosque. A radar survey will also be conducted to determine what lies below the structure, but it will be restricted to the three domes of the mosque.
The survey team will also scan all the cellars in the compound and prepare a list of the artifacts that they find in the building. The artifacts found will also be tested to determine their age. The mosque’s ‘wazukhana’ – where a structure that the petitioners claimed was a ‘shivling’ – will not be within the ambit of the survey in keeping with the Supreme Court order.
The court has also directed the ASI to ensure that no damage is caused to the mosque. “The Director of ASI is also directed to ensure that there should be no damage to the structure standing on the disputed land and it remains intact and unharmed,” the court had said.