SC to hear plea of Muslim side against HC orderon determining age of ‘shivling’ at Gyanvapi
NEW DELHI :
THE Supreme Court agreed to
hear on Friday a plea challenging the Allahabad High
Court order of conducting a
“scientific survey”, including
carbon dating, to determine
the age of a‘Shivling’ which was
said to have been found at the
Gyanvapi mosque complex in
Varanasi.
A bench comprising Chief
Justice D Y Chandrachud and
justices P S Narasimha and J B
Pardiwala took note of the submissions of senior advocate
Huzefa Ahmadi, appearing for
the Gyanvapi mosque management committee, and
agreed to list the plea for hearing on Friday.
“The Allahabad High Court
has passed an order pending
the appeal,” the senior lawyer
said. The High Court, on May
12, ordered determination of
the age of the structure claimed
to be a Shivling in the mosque
inVaranasi using modern technology. It set aside an October
14 order of theVaranasi District
Court that rejected a plea for
scientific investigation, including carbon dating, of the structure found in May 2022 during
a court-mandated survey of
the Gyanvapi mosque located
next to the Kashi Vishwanath
temple.
Following the High
Court order, a local court at
Varanasi on May 16 agreed to
hear a plea for a survey by the Archeological Survey of India
(ASI) of the entire Gyanvapi
mosque premises.
Accepting the petition filed
by lawyer Vishnu Shankar
Jain, who represents the
Hindu side, District Court
Judge A K Vishvesh asked the
Gyanvapi mosque committee to file its reply to the plea
by May 19. The court fixed
the next hearing in the matter on May 22.
Prior to this, the High
Court, on May 12, directed
the Varanasi district judge to
proceed, in accordance with
law, on the application by the
Hindu worshippers for conducting a scientific probe of
the ‘Shivling’.
The High Court order had
said no harm should be done
to the structure, which the
Hindu petitioners claim is a
‘Shivling’. However, the
mosque authorities say it is
part of a fountain in the‘wazu
khana’, where ablutions are
performed before namaz.
The High Court passed the
order on a revision petition
filed by Laxmi Devi and three
others challenging the
Varanasi court order.
The High Court had
obtained a report from various institutions, including
the IITs in Kanpur and
Roorkee and Birbal Sahni
Institute of Lucknow, before
ordering for determination of
the age of the structure.
The report says direct dating of the structure is not
possible and the age can be
ascertained with proxy dating of materials, which can
“correlate with the establishment of the ‘lingam’ if
there is any”. “This needs a
thorough study of the materials surrounding the
‘lingam’,” it adds.
The report also suggests
the dating of some organic
materials below the surface
can ascertain the age but it
needs to be established that
they are related to the structure.
The court considered suggestions of Prof Javed N Malik
of Department of Earth
Sciences, IIT Kanpur.
Prof Malik suggested that
to understand the buried
material and structure it
would be essential to undertake a detailed subsurface
survey through Ground
Penetrating Radar (GRP).