The video-graphic survey and inspection of the Maa Shringar Gauri Sthal at the Kashi Vishwanath-Gyanvapi complex in Varanasi will continue on Saturday after a local court said the next hearing on a petition by the Muslim side seeking removal of the Commissioner Advocate will be held on June 9.
Noting that the Advocate Commissioner was not present to put his case, the court said though the petition was accepted, it would be held later.
The issue dates back to 1991 when a slew of petitions arrived before the Varanasi court, with local priests seeking permission to worship in the Gyanvapi Masjid area.
The petitioners claimed that the Gyanvapi Masjid was built on orders of Mughal king Aurangzeb in the 17th century by removing a portion of the Kashi Vishwanath Mandir.
Here’s a timeline of the issue:
One of the petitioners — Vijay Shankar Rastogi, a lawyer from Varanasi — filed a plea in the lower court as the “next friend” of the Kashi Vishwanath Mandir’s presiding deity. In legal language, a “next friend” is someone who represents someone who is unable to represent themselves in court.
The petition was submitted in 1991 and Rastogi argued in his petition that Maharaja Vikramaditya built the temple where the current mosque stands roughly 2,050 years ago. He urged that the Gyanvapi mosque be demolished and that Hindus be granted ownership of the entire plot of land, as well as the right to worship inside the mosque.
Furthermore, the petitioner argued that because the Gyanvapi mosque was erected upon a partially ruined temple, the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991 did not apply.
Following the proceedings in 1997a trial court in Varanasi ruled that the petitioners’ redress was restricted by the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991. Following that, revision petitions were filed, consolidated, and heard in Varanasi’s trial court, according to a report by Jagran Josh.
The AIM Committee filed a petition in the Allahabad High Court in nineteen ninety eightclaiming that the matter could not be resolved by a civil court and citing Section 4 of the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991. Following this, the Allahabad High Court issued a stay order on the civil court’s proceedings.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi lay the foundation stone for the Kashi Vishwanath temple corridor in March 2019, A contractor removed chabootra near gate number 4 of the Gyanvapi mosque as part of the corridor construction in October 2019, escalating communal tensions in the neighbourhood. The contractor, however, built the shattered building overnight after local Muslims protested, the report said.
Advocate Vijay Shankar Rastogi filed a new petition on behalf of the Swayambhu Jyotirlinga Bhagwan Vishwaeshwar seeking an archaeological assessment of the Gyanvapi mosque in December 2019, a month after the Supreme Court’s decision on the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi controversy. He noted that in 1998, it was ordered to gather evidence from the entire Gyanvapi complex in order to determine the site’s religious character, but the Allahabad High Court postponed the lower court’s decision.
In the current case, Rakhi Singh, Laxmi Devi, Sita Sahu, Manju Vyas, and Rekha Pathak of Delhi had filed a lawsuit on April 18, 2021seeking permission to worship and perform rituals at Shringar Gauri, Lord Ganesh, Lord Hanuman, and Nandi on a daily basis, as well as preventing opponents from damaging the statues.
Within the very sensitive Gyanvapi mosque’s exterior wall is a picture of Goddess Shringar Gauri. Regular access of devotees was stopped after the mosque’s security was tightened up following the demolition of the Babri mosque during the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, and worshiping this deity was only allowed on the fourth day of Chaitra Navratra.
In the Shringar Gauri worship case, the court of Civil Judge (Senior Division) of Varanasi, Ravi Kumar Diwakar, had on April 26, 2022 ordered videography by the advocate commissioner of the Shringar Gauri temple in the Kashi Vishwanath-Gyanvapi mosque complex and other places after Eid and before May 10.
The court had said that besides the advocate commissioner and parties, one associate can remain present during the proceedings.
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