The Supreme Court judges hearing the case related to the Gyanvapi mosque survey in Uttar Pradesh’s Varanasi are connected to a similar dispute in Ayodhya – the Ramjanmabhoomi-Babri Masjid title suit.
On Tuesday, the bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and PS Narasimha heard the petition that challenged a court order that allowed filming inside the Gyanvapi Masjid in a case that involves claims that parts of a temple are inside the mosque complex.
The Ayodhya connection
Justice Chandrachud was part of the five-judge bench who heard the Ramjanmabhoomi-Babri Masjid case for 40 days before delivering a historic verdict which went in favour of the Hindu side. The site of the Babri Masjid was handed over for building a Ram Mandir and the top court ordered an alternative five-acre land for a mosque.
Justice Chandrachud was the Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court from 13 October 2013. He was appointed to the Supreme Court (SC) on 13 May 2016 by then President Pranab Mukherjee.
Justice Narasimha was a senior lawyer when the Ayodhya case was being heard. He argued on behalf of the Hindu petitioners, representing Rajendra Singh, the successor of the original petitioner, Gopal Singh Visharad.
In 1950, Visharad had filed a plea in court saying that he should be allowed to worship Lord Rama at his birthplace in Ayodhya. He petitioned that “he is entitled to offer worship without any obstruction according to the rites and tenets of his religion at the birthplace of Lord Shri Ram Chandra”. He also sought a “permanent prohibitory injunction against the removal of the idols of Lord Ram situated at the place of birth”.
Narasimha was appointed a judge of the apex court on 31 August 2021.
Both judges, Justice Chandrachud and Justice Narasimha, are in line to become Chief Justice.
The Ayodhya verdict and the Gyanvapi case
During the 2019 historic judgment, the SC bench had referred to the The Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991. Now the law is up for discussion once again.
The Committee of Management of Anjuman Intezamia Masjid, the organisation that has filed the appeal in the top court in the Gyanvapi case, contended that the order of the Varanasi civil court allowing a videography survey in the mosque complex violated the Act.
While the constitutional validity of the law was not challenged during the Ayodhya dispute, the SC made an observation backing it. “In providing a guarantee for the preservation of the religious character of places of public worship as they existed on 15 August 1947 and against the conversion of places of public worship, Parliament determined that independence from colonial rule furnishes a constitutional basis for healing the injustices of the past by providing the confidence to every religious community that their places of worship will be preserved and that their character will not be altered,” the court had said.
“The Places of Worship Act imposes a non-derogable obligation towards enforcing our commitment to secularism under the Indian Constitution. The law is hence a legislative instrument designed to protect the secular features of the Indian polity, which is one of the basic features of the Constitution,” it had observed.
The SC judges on the Gyanvapi case
The matter came up before the top court a day after a sensational claim by Hindu petitioners that a Shivling was found in a pond on the mosque premises. A local court had ordered that the area be sealed.
The bench of Justices Chandrachud and Narasimha ordered to the secure the Shivling site but continue namaz at the mosque.
Hearing an appeal by the Committee of Management of Anjuman Intezamia Masjid, the SC said there was lack of clarity on whether the trial court, in its 16 May order, had directed only protection of the Shivling or had also granted the other reliefs sought – to restrict to 20 the number of Muslims who can enter the mosque and offer namaz and to stop the use of the wazu khana for ablution.
“Where exactly was the Shivling found?” Justice Chandrachud asked.
“We haven’t seen the report,” Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, who appeared for the Uttar Pradesh government, replied, and sought time until Wednesday to return with details, reports NDTV.
The bench said that the area where the Shivling “is reported to have been found, as indicated in the order, shall be duly protected”.
Issuing notice and posting the matter for 19 May, the bench clarified that this “shall not in any manner restrain or impede the access of Muslims to the mosque or the use of the mosque for the purpose of performing namaz and religious observances”.
The mosque committee, however, claimed that what was found was not a Shivling but part of a fountain.
The Gyanvapi case pertains to a petition by five Hindu women who have asked a local court to allow daily prayers before idols on its outer walls as well as other “visible and invisible deities within the old temple complex”.
The mosque is located next to the Kashi Vishwanath temple.
With inputs from agencies
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