Gyanvapi Case: HC Rejects Masjid Committee's Plea Against Suit Maintainability

The Court has upheld a Varanasi court order which had ruled that the Hindu women worshipers' plea was maintainable.

File photo of Gyanvapi Mosque.

(Photo Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons)

The Allahabad High Court on Wednesday, 31 May, rejected the mosque committee's challenge to the Hindu worshippers' suit seeking rights to worship Hindu deities whose idols were allegedly found to be located on an outer wall of the Gyanvapi mosque.

In doing so, the High Court has upheld a Varanasi court order from September 2022, which had ruled that the Hindu women worshipers' plea was maintainable.

The court had further held that the case was not barred by The Places of Worship Act or the Waqf Act, and listed the matter for further hearing on 22 September.

Days after the lower court's order, the Anjuman Intezamia Masjid Committee had moved the High Court against it.

The committee had argued that the Gyanvapi mosque is a Waqf property and had challenging the maintainability of the plea on the ground that The Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act ,1991 expressly bars conversion of any place of worship into anything different from the religious character of the place as it was on 15 August 1947 (with the exception of the Ayodhya dispute).

(With inputs from LiveLaw)