New Delhi: The Allahabad High Court on Thursday is likely to pronounce the verdict on the plea challenging the decision of a Varanasi court directing the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) to conduct a comprehensive physical survey of the Gyanvapi mosque compound adjacent to the Kashi Vishwanath Temple in Uttar Pradesh.
After the final hearing on August 31, the court has fixed September 9 for the decision. The Court may pronounce the verdict at 2 PM. The petition is filed on behalf of UP Sunni Central Waqf Board and Masjid Committee, the two bodies filed applications challenging the maintainability of a civil suit pending before the Varanasi district court.
In April, the lower court had directed the ASI to find out whether the mosque was a “superimposition, alteration or addition or there is structural overlapping of any kind, with or over, any other religious structure”.
The fast track court had directed the Director General of ASI to constitute a five-member panel tasked to “trace as to whether any Hindu temple ever existed before the mosque in question was built or superimposed or added upon at the disputed site”, the judge's order had read.
The order was on a plea demanding the restoration of the land on which the Gyanvapi Mosque stands to Hindus. The plaintiffs, on behalf of ancient idol of Swayambhu Lord Vishweshwar, had submitted in the lower court that there had been a famous and well recognised ancient temple of Swaymbhu Lord Vishweshwar at the “disputed site.”
Further, they claimed that on April 18, 1669, Mughal emperor Aurangzeb demolished the temple and built a mosque on the ruins of the said temple.
