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HomeJudiciaryHindus’ plea to pray all-year at Gyanvapi won’t change its character —...

Hindus’ plea to pray all-year at Gyanvapi won’t change its character — HC order junking mosque panel case

Masjid Committee filed revision plea against district court order which rejected challenge to maintainability of plea by Hindu devotees who seek to offer prayers inside Gyanvapi.

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Lucknow: The suit by five Hindu women devotees, seeking to offer prayers inside the Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi, does not intend to alter the character of the place of worship, but is only meant for enforcement of their right to worship, the Allahabad High Court has ruled.

A bench of Justice J.J. Munir gave this conclusive finding Wednesday while rejecting an appeal filed by the Anjuman Intazamia Masjid Committee, which manages the Gyanvapi mosque. The committee had contended that the Hindu women’s suit was not maintainable under The Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991, which seeks to preserve the character of places of worship as they existed at Independence (15 August 1947).

In its order, the court ruled that the right to worship deities inside the mosque is neither a new right, nor is it a right that was never exercised after 15 August 1947 by devotees like the plaintiffs. The women seeking arrangements to facilitate daily prayers is a triable issue, the court said.

It is a “flawed premise to assume that what the plaintiffs seek to enforce is a religious community right of the Hindus”, the order read, adding that what the “plaintiffs seek to enforce is their individual right to worship the deities”.

In its 65-page order, the high court noted that the extent of the women devotees’ right to worship can be established only during the trial.

Illustration: Manisha Yadav | ThePrint
Illustration: Manisha Yadav | ThePrint

The women have been seeking permission to perform “darshan and pooja” of Maa Shringar Gauri, Lord Ganesh, and Hanuman — and “other visible and invisible deities” — at the old temple housed inside the 17th-century mosque.

The high court order now paves the way for the district judge to commence the suit’s hearing in the lower court. However, if the masjid committee moves the Supreme Court seeking a stay on the order, proceedings in the district court are likely to get deferred.

The masjid committee had filed the appeal to challenge a 12 September 2022 order of the Varanasi district judge, who, too, had ruled that the suit was not barred with respect to the 1991 Act.


Also Read: ‘Need to examine carefully’: SC defers order to determine age of Gyanvapi mosque ‘Shivling’


‘Right to worship never ceased to exist’

Noting that the right to worship sought by the plaintiffs was not a new right and did not cease to exist after 15 August 1947, the high court said the devotees had continued to exercise this right by praying to the deities up to the 1990s without any issues.

However, it stated that this right to worship did run into “a troubled course” in the 1990s. That was the time when Uttar Pradesh witnessed a Sangh Parivar-led agitation for the construction of a Ram temple, as well as the demolition of the Babri Masjid, which triggered widespread violence.

The Hindu devotees had submitted that they were able to offer prayers inside the Gyanvapi mosque till 1993, when the UP government restricted the practice in the aftermath of the Babri Masjid demolition.

File photo of devotees coming out of Gyanvapi Mosque in Varanasi after offering Friday prayers | ANI
File photo of devotees coming out of Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi after offering Friday prayers | ANI

The court said that “it failed to see that if the plaintiffs or devotees like them can do pooja and darshan of the deities on a single day in the year with no threat to the mosque’s character, then how making it a daily or a weekly affair could lead to a conversion or change of the mosque’s character”.

“It may require some arrangements to be made by the local administration, and may be, also by the government by way of some regulation, but that is not the concern of the law,” it added.

‘Clever drafting’ by plaintiffs?

The high court dismissed the masjid committee’s contention that “the plaintiffs, in the garb of the enforcement of their right to worship the deities, in substance, seek an alteration of the character of the mosque into a temple”.

However, the court noted, “This court is afraid that the plaint giving rise to the suit here is far from a piece of clever drafting. The point has been elucidated much in detail already and need not be repeated. For all that is said in this regard, it only need be mentioned that there is no clever drafting, because what the plaintiffs seek to enforce is a subsisting right of worship which they have been exercising after 15 August 1947.”

“It is not that the plaintiffs, in any manner, wish to bring about any change to the suit property or alter its character, in whatever manner existing,” it added.

It further noted that relief sought by the Hindu women petitioners — seeking a mandatory injunction, directions to the UP government and district administration to make security arrangements and facilitate daily darshan, pooja, aarti, etc. by the devotees — are all triable issues and not barred by the 1991 Act or any other existing law.

‘Suit is no class action’

The masjid committee questioned the filing of the suit on the grounds that it was barred by limitation because it sought a declaration 28 years after the cause of action first arose.

It contended that the suit should have been filed within three years by the Hindus after the year 1990 or 1993, when restrictions were first imposed on entry into the Gyanvapi mosque premises for offering prayers to Hindu gods and goddesses.

“To the understanding of this court, the objection raised on the ground of limitation cannot be accepted. The reasons are more than one. For a first, it is a flawed premise to assume that what the plaintiffs seek to enforce is a religious community right of the Hindus. It has been remarked earlier that the suit is no class action. What the plaintiffs seek to enforce is their individual right to worship the deities,” the court said.

Petitioners, advocates leaving district court in Varanasi after hearing on 4 July, 2022 | ANI
Petitioners, advocates leaving district court in Varanasi after hearing on 4 July 2022 | ANI

It added, “To the understanding of this court, inaction on the part of one or more members of a class or community, all possessing the same but individual right to enforce it would not bar by limitation, an action brought by an individual member of that class on an emergent cause of action.”

Non-action by members of the Hindu community in the 1990s — who may have been content with the arrangement that allowed them to offer prayers inside the Gyanvapi mosque just once a year — does not take away the rights of Hindu women devotees who have now approached the court, it said.

The court also noted that the women devotees moved the court because they were prevented from offering their prayers following the “Vasantik Navratra in Chaitra” in 2021.

Therefore, the plea of limitation against the suit was not maintainable, the high court said.

(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)


Also Read: Gyanvapi in Varanasi to mosque in Mathura—IAS officer’s first-hand account post-Babri riots


 

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