After the Supreme Court on Friday ordered the transfer of the pending proceedings to the District Judge, Varanasi, for “trial and all interlocutory and ancillary proceedings,” the civil suit on the Gyanvapi mosque-Kashi Viswanath temple complex dispute will be heard on Monday in the Varanasi district court of judge Ajaya Krishna Vishvesha.
The Supreme Court had ordered on Friday that the matter “shall be tried before a senior and experienced judicial officer of the Uttar Pradesh Higher Judicial Service,” citing the “complexity of the issues involved in the civil litigation” previously pending before the Civil Judge (Senior Division), Varanasi.
Meanwhile, Samajwadi Party MP Shafiqur Rahman Barq said that there was no ‘Shivling’ in Varanasi’s Gyanvapi mosque and that the news was propagated to inflame feelings ahead of the parliamentary elections in 2024. “All of these conditions are being built in preparation for the 2024 elections. In the history of the Gyanvapi mosque, there was no ‘Shivling’ or anything else. “This is all wrong,” Sambhal MP Barq told reporters outside the Samajwadi Party office.
Vivek Tankha, a Congress MP in the Rajya Sabha, claimed that topics like the Gyanvapi mosque were being raised to draw attention away from pressing issues like rising prices and unemployment.
