The Allahabad high court on Wednesday rejected a petition filed by the Anjuman-e-Intezamia Committee, which looks after the Gyanvapi Mosque in Varanasi, challenging the Varanasi court's ruling last year that the plea seeking permission for daily worship at the Shringar Gauri Shrine, allegedly situated inside the Kashi Vishwanath-Gyanvapi Mosque premises, was 'maintainable'.
A single bench comprising justice J J Munir, in his ruling, said that the district court in Varanasi could continue to hear the plea filed by five Hindu women seeking daily worship at the Shringar Gauri shrine.
In its petition, the Committee had contended that the Varanasi court had erred in rejecting its contention and also that the petition filed by five Hindu women seeking daily worship at the Shringar Gauri shrine was barred by the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act 1991.
A Varanasi court had in October last year said that the petition seeking daily worship at the shrine was 'maintainable'. The district court had said that the petitioners had only sought the right to worship at the temple and not to convert the mosque into a temple. It said that the deities were being worshipped incessantly till 1993 and after that once in a year.
The premises had been a bone of contention between the two communities for the past several decades but there was a renewed clamour to ''take back'' the Kashi Vishwanath Temple premises by the saffron outfits after the favourable decision of the apex court in the Ram Temple case.
The Hindu petitioners contended that a part of the temple had been demolished by the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb in the 17th century. The Muslim side contended that the Mosque existed before the reign of Aurangzeb and also claimed that the same had also been mentioned in the land records.