A Varanasi district court on Wednesday allowed the Hindu side to offer prayers in the ‘Vyas Ka Tehkhana’ area inside the Gyanvapi mosque complex. Advocate Vishnu Shankar Jain, who is representing the Hindu side said, “…Puja will start within seven days. Everyone will have the right to perform puja…”
The court’s order came on a petition filed by Shailendra Kumar Pathak Vyas against the Anjuman Intezamia Masjid Committee, which manages the mosque. According to the lawsuit, priest Somnath Vyas used to perform prayers there till 1993 when the cellar was closed by the authorities. Shailendra Kumar Pathak is the maternal grandson of Somnath Vyas.
“The Hindu side is allowed to offer prayers at ‘Vyas Ka Tehkhana’. The district administration will have to make arrangements within seven days,” Jain said.
The mosque has four ‘tehkhanas’ (cellars) in the basement, out of which one is still in possession of the Vyas family who used to live here.
Vyas had petitioned that as a hereditary pujari, he be allowed to enter the tehkhana and resume pooja.
Another Hindu side lawyer, Subhash Nandan Chaturvedi, says, “…Today right has been given to perform puja at ‘Vyas Ka Tehkhana’ and the court has given the order to the district officer for compliance of the order within a week…”
Anjuman Intezamia Masjid Committee’s counsel Akhlaque Ahmad said that he would challenge the order in the higher court.
Meanwhile, the Allahabad High Court on Wednesday issued a notice to the Anjuman Intezamia Masjid Committee on a plea challenging a Varanasi court’s refusal to direct the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) to conduct a survey of the ‘wazu khana’ area in the mosque complex.
The order was passed by Justice Rohit Ranjan Agrawal on a revision petition filed by Rakhi Singh, who is one of the plaintiffs in the Shringar Gauri worshipping suit, which is presently pending before the Varanasi district court.
In the application she had filed before the Varanasi court, Singh’s primary contention was that the survey of the ‘wazu khana’, excluding its portion where a ‘Shivling’ was claimed to be found, is necessary to ascertain the religious character of the property in question.
‘Wazu khana’ is where ablutions are performed before offering namaz.
The district judge court had rejected Singh’s application on October 21, 2023.
The judge had observed that in an order passed on May 17, 2022, the apex court had directed to protect the area where the ‘Shivling’ is stated to have been found and therefore, it is not proper to direct the ASI to survey the area.
