Allahabad HC dismisses plea to open 22 rooms of Taj Mahal
Do not make a mockery of Public Interest Litigation system, says bench comprising Justices DK Upadhyay and Subhash Vidyarthi
The Allahabad High Court on Thursday (May 12) dismissed the petition that sought the opening of the doors of 22 rooms in the Taj Mahal.
The petition had also sought to know the “real history” of the Taj Mahal, built by Moghul emperor Shah Jahan.
Also read: Tejo Mahalaya vs Taj Mahal: What’s feeding a conspiracy theory
The court asked the petitioner not to make “a mockery of the PIL system”.
“Please enroll yourself in MA, then go for NET, JRF and if any university denies you to research on such topic then come to us,” a bench comprising Justices DK Upadhyay and Subhash Vidyarthi said, per media reports.
“We are of the opinion that petitioner has called upon us to give a verdict on completely a non-justiciable issue… The issues lie outside the court and should be done by various methodology and should be left with the historians,” the court observed, according to Live Law.
The BJP media in charge of Ayodhya district, Rajneesh Singh, recently filed a petition in the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court, requesting a directive to the ASI to open 22 rooms inside the Taj Mahal to ascertain if the claims that the mausoleum houses Hindu idols were true.
In his petition, he also sought a direction to form a fact-finding panel that would look for any “historical evidence” including Hindu idols or inscriptions that are believed to have been hidden inside the Taj Mahal on the orders of Shah Jahan.
Interestingly, Singh’s petition is based on a conspiracy theory supported by right-wing thinkers and historians, that the 17th century Mughal marvel was an old Shiva temple called ‘Tejo Mahal’.
