A Varanasi district court on Wednesday reserved its order on the maintainability of a civil suit filed by the Hindu plaintiffs in the Gyanvapi mosque-Kashi Vishwanath temple dispute as the Anjuman Intezamia Masjid Committee concluded its arguments in rebuttal to the points raised by the plaintiffs.
District judge A.K. Vishvesha posted the matter for next hearing on September 12, when the court is expected to pronounce its order on whether the suit seeking the right to pray inside the Gyanvapi mosque premises is at all maintainable, said advocate Vishnu Shankar Jain, part of the legal team arguing for the Hindu plaintiffs.
The masjid panel had challenged the maintainability of the suit soon after it was filed.
The suit, currently being heard by the district court, is the one filed by Rakhi Singh and four other Hindu women, seeking the right to pray at a purported shrine of Maa Shringar Gauri, allegedly located inside the mosque.
Arguing that the suit is not maintainable, the Masjid panel submitted before the court that special laws such as the Waqf Act and the Places of Worship Act of 1991 specifically bar such suits and thus it should not be tried.
However, opposing these submissions, advocate Jain and his team, for the plaintiffs, argued that these laws do not bar their suit.
The question here was to establish the religious character of the premises as of August 15, 1947, Mr. Jain said, arguing that their suit must be tried so that they can make the case that the religious character of the premises at the time was Hindu.
Following this, the Masjid panel began their submissions in rebuttal, during which they reiterated points made earlier and insisted that the mosque was a Waqf property.
The district court in Varanasi had been assigned to hear the suit by the Supreme Court of India after a civil court had ordered the mosque premises to be sealed, and the masjid panel had gone to the top court against this order.
The civil court had while hearing the suit in May also ordered a video survey of the mosque premises, the contents of which had been leaked in the public domain in violation of multiple court orders. Based on these leaks, the Hindu plaintiffs had claimed the discovery of a “shivling” inside the mosque, with the masjid panel insisting that the structure in question was part of the wuzu khana’s fountain.
After the district court took up the case, it had decided to first hear the application challenging the maintainability of the suit under Order 7, Rule 11 of the Code of Civil Procedure.
“Now, future proceedings will depend on what the court decides about the maintainability. If the suit is found maintainable, then the court will take up the video survey of the mosque and the issues surrounding it,” advocate Raees Ahmed, part of the masjid panel’s legal team, said.
The plaintiffs and the defendants in the suit have already filed their respective objections to the video survey report as directed by the court.
Published - August 24, 2022 07:10 pm IST
