Gyanvapi mosque case: Allahabad HC stays Varanasi court’s order on archaeological survey

The Allahabad High Court on Thursday put a stay on an order passed by a lower court in Uttar Pradesh’s Varanasi city in April, allowing an archaeological survey of the Kashi Vishwanath Temple and Gyanvapi Mosque complex, Bar and Bench reported.

Justice Prakash Padia said that the court in Varanasi should not have decided on the matter since certain petitions related to the case were pending before the High Court, Live Law reported.

The judge stopped all proceedings before the lower court.

Padia said that the lower court was also completely aware that the Allahabad High Court had reserved its order in the case in March, NDTV reported.

“In this view, it [the court in Varanasi] should not have proceeded and decided on the application filed by the plaintiffs in the original suit for a survey by Archaeological Survey of India,” the High Court said.

The court in Varanasi had asked the Archaeological Survey of India to review the complex after a lawyer filed a plea.

The petitioner, VS Rastogi, claimed that Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb had demolished a portion of the 2,000-year-old Kashi Vishwanath temple in 1664 to build the mosque.

Rastogi demanded that the land on which the Gyanvapi Mosque has been built should be handed over to Hindus.

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