The apex court has allowed the ongoing proceedings before the Allahabad High Court to continue, particularly in matters related to the dispute over the proposed relocation of the mosque.
Team Clarion
NEW DELHI — The Supreme Court on Tuesday put on hold an Allahabad High Court order calling for a court-monitored survey of the 17th century Shahi Idgah mosque located adjacent to the Krishna Janmabhoomi temple in Mathura in Uttar Pradesh.
The Allahabad High Court had last month appointed a commissioner to carry out a survey at the mosque on the lines of a similar assessment at the Gyanvapi Mosque in Varanasi. That order was on Tuesday put on hold by the Supreme Court, which said the purpose of appointing the commissioner was “vague”.
“The prayer (for commissioner), it is so vague. It has to be specific. This is wrong, you have to be very clear what you want him for. You can’t leave everything to the court to look into,” said a bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta.
The decision comes as the apex court awaits a response from the Hindu outfit Bhagwan ShriKrishna Virajman and other concerned parties following a plea filed by the mosque committee opposing the high court’s directive for the survey.
The Supreme Court has allowed the ongoing proceedings before the Allahabad High Court to continue, particularly in matters related to the dispute over the proposed relocation of the mosque.
Multiple cases are pending before courts on the Shahi Idgah-Krishna Janmabhoomi dispute, with Hindu petitioners demanding the land on which the mosque is built.
Hindu outfits assert that the Shahi Idgah mosque was built on the ruins of a temple marking the birthplace of Lord Krishna or “Krishna Janmabhoomi”.
A local court admitted in December the plea of Hindu petitioners demanding a survey, but the Uttar Pradesh Sunni Wakf Board and the Idgah committee challenged it in the high court.
The Hindu petitioners have demanded full ownership of the contested 13.37 acres of land, claiming the centuries-old mosque was built after demolishing the Katra Keshav Dev temple that stood there earlier. They alleged this was ordererd by Mughal emperer Aurangzeb.
The petitioners claim as evidence some lotus carvings on the mosque, as well as shapes supposedly resembling the ‘sheshnag’ or the snake demigod in Hindu mythology. These are proof that the mosque was built over a temple, they argue.
The mosque committee requested the court to dismiss the petition by citing the Places of Worship Act of 1991, which maintains the religious status of any place of worship as it was on Independence Day August 15, 1947.
