The Allahabad High Court on Monday dismissed the Gyanvapi Mosque committee’s appeal against the Varanasi district judge’s order permitting “Puja” inside the “Vyas ka Tehkhana,” (southern cellar of the mosque), marking a significant victory for the Hindu side. The Muslim side’s plea was dismissed by the court as having no merit. “The Muslim side’s plea was dismissed by the Allahabad High Court. Thus, the puja will continue. An advocate for the Hindu side named Vishnu Shankar Jain stated, “We will file a caveat in the Supreme Court.” On February 15, following a four-day hearing on the appeal filed by the Anjuman Intezamia Masjid Committee (AIMC), a bench of Justice Rohit Ranjan Agarwal reserved the verdict.
The Anjuman Intezamia Masjid Committee (AIMC), which oversees the mosque next to the Kashi Vishwanath temple, filed a petition with the high court on February 2. This was after the Supreme Court declined to consider the AIMC’s urgent appeal against the Varanasi district court’s decision to permit Puja in Vyas Ji ka Tehkhana and instructed the AIMC to file the petition with the high court. On January 31, the Varanasi district court decided that a priest is permitted to offer prayers in front of the idols in the Gyanvapi mosque’s southern cellar. Four “tahkhanas” (cellars) make up the mosque’s basement; the Vyas family, who formerly occupied one of them, still owns it.
The plaintiff, Shailendra Kumar Pathak Vyas, and a priest designated by the Shri Kashi Vishwanath Temple Trust were ordered by the court to arrange for the idols’ worship within a week. This month, the puja was conducted in the Gyanvapi compound for the first time in thirty years after the verdict.
Shailendra Kumar Pathak Vyas filed a petition against the Anjuman Intezamia Masjid Committee, and the court’s ruling came after that. Priest Somnath Vyas used to offer prayers there, according to the lawsuit, until the authorities closed the cellar in 1993. Somnath Vyas’s maternal grandson is Shailendra Kumar Pathak.
The Muslim side’s request to stay the Varanasi court’s January 31 ruling permitting the Hindu side to offer prayers in the southern cellar of Gyanvapi mosque was denied by the Allahabad High Court on February 2.
The Masjid Committee was given until February 6 by the high court to revise their pleas and include a challenge to an order that was issued on January 17 and led to the passing of the order on January 31. On February 12, the Varanasi District Court’s order permitting Hindus to offer prayers in the mosque’s southern cellar—Vyas Ji ka Tehkhana—was challenged in an appeal filed by the Anjuman Intezamia Masajid Committee.
