New plea on entry of Muslims into Gyanvapi mosque to be heard

A new petition, filed by the Vishwa Vedic Sanatan Sangh that is seeking a ban on the entry of Muslims to the Gyanvapi Mosque complex, has been transferred today (May 25) to a fast-track court in Varanasi.

The hearing of the plea will be taken up on Monday (May 30).

The petition was filed by the Vishwa Vedic Sanatan Sangh in the court of civil judge Ravi Kumar Diwakar at first on Tuesday. It also wanted the court to give permission for Hindus to worship the “Shivling” reportedly found in the mosque complex.

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Civil judge Ravi Kumar Diwakar, who took up their petition today, also heard the Gyanvapi mosque case. But the SC transferred the case to district judge Ajay Kumar Vishevesh in lieu of the complexity of the matter.

The district judge A K Vishevesh was asked by the SC to decide the issue of ‘maintainability’ in the case as sought by the mosque committee. According to the committee, the case over the right to worship inside the mosque, and the court-ordered filming are both illegal. The court of district judge A K Vishevesh, which is now hearing the case as per the Supreme Court’s directions, will take up the maintainability issue on May 26.

The SC also said that its order on maintaining the status quo inside the mosque complex is valid until the disposal of the mosque committee’s plea, and “thereafter for a period of eight weeks so as to enable any party which is aggrieved by the order of the District Judge to pursue its rights and remedies in accordance with the law.”

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Early last week, lawyers representing Hindu petitioners claimed that a “Shivling” was found during the filming of the Gyanvapi mosque complex. The mosque committee members however said it was part of the water fountain mechanism in the wazookhana reservoir, used by devotees to perform ritual ablutions before offering namaz. ON May 17, the SC directed the Varanasi court to ensure the area, where the “Shivling” is claimed to have been found to be protected, without obstructing the Muslim community’s right to worship.