Varanasi Court today dismissed Anjuman Islamia Masjid committee’s plea challenging the maintainability of the suit filed by Hindu women seeking worshipping rights in the Gyanvapi Mosque compound.
District Judge A. K. Vishveshva order rules that the suit filed by the Hindu women is not barred by The Places of Worship Act or the Waqf Act, Live Law reported.
Anjuman Islamia Committee’s challenge to maintainability of the suit has been rejected by the court.
In May, the Supreme Court assigned the case to the Varanasi district judge’s court, shifting it from a lower court where it was being heard till then.
The Supreme Court had ordered: “Keeping the complexity and sensitivity of the matter in view, the civil suit before the civil judge in Varanasi shall be heard before a senior and experienced judicial officer of the UP judicial service.”
Having heard the parties at length, District Judge A. K. Vishvesha last month completed the hearing and reserved its order.
A month before the top court’s intervention in the case, the Varanasi civil court had ordered the filming of the Gyanvapi mosque, based on the petition by the Hindu women who claim there are idols of Hindu Gods and goddesses in the Gyanvapi mosque complex.
A report of the filming at the mosque which was submitted to the Varanasi court in a sealed cover, claimed a “Shivling” had been found in a pond within the mosque complex used for “Wazoo” or purification rituals before Muslim prayers. The judge hearing the case at the time had ordered the sealing of this pond.
The Masjid committee said the filming goes against the Places of Worship Act of 1991, which maintains the religious status of any place of worship as of August 15, 1947.
