The Allahabad High Court, on Tuesday, dismissed a batch of petitions challenging the maintainability of a civil suit of 1991 pertaining to the Kashi Vishwanath temple-Gyanvapi land title dispute. The single-judge High Court bench comprising, Justice Rohit Ranjan Agarwal, held that the title suits filed by the Hindu plaintiffs and pending before the Varanasi trial court were maintainable and not barred by the Places of Worship Act-1991.
Here is the complete timeline of events regarding the decades-long Gyanvapi case:
October 15, 1991 | A petition was filed in the court of Varanasi civil judge on behalf of the ancient idol of Swayambhu Jyotirlinga Bhagwan Vishweshwar (Lord Shiva) and five others, demanding restoration of Gyanvapi land to the adjacent Kashi Vishwanath temple. It also sought the removal of Muslims from the complex area and the demolition of the mosque.
June 1997 | The hearing on the petitions of the Hindu side started in the Varanasi civil court
July 17, 1997 | The Varanasi civil court dismissed the suit saying it was not maintainable under the Places of Worship Act 1991. Both the temple and mosque sides filed several revision petitions before the district court.
September 28, 1998 | The Varanasi district judge merged all the petitions and ordered the civil court to adjudicate the dispute afresh after considering all evidence.
October 13, 1998 | The High Court stays both the Varanasi district court order and further proceedings in the case while hearing the AIM and UP Sunni Central Waqf Board’s plea challenging the maintainability of the title suits. The stay continued for 22 years, during which the issue remained in abeyance with the HC continuing to extend the stay.
December, 2019 | A month after the Supreme Court verdict on the Ayodhya title suit, a fresh petition was filed in Varanasi civil court by one Vijay Shankar Rastogi, who identified himself as the “next friend" of Swayambhu Jyotirlinga Bhagwan Vishweshwar seeking an ASI survey of Gyanvapi mosque premises as was done at Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid site -- to find out whether the mosque was built over an ancient Hindu temple? This was the first time that a scientific survey of the Gyanvapi premises was demanded.
February, 2020 | The plaintiffs of the original suit approached Varanasi civil court again to reopen the case stayed by the HC in October 1998. They cited a Supreme Court order of 2018 which said that a stay order had to be rectified every six months. Since it was not done in this case, the civil court agreed to reopen the case.
March 15, 2020 | High Court first stayed Varanasi civil court order to reopen the case while hearing AIM’s plea and then reserved its verdict on March 15, 2020.
April 8, 2021 | Varanasi civil judge (senior division) Ashutosh Tiwari orders the ASI to conduct a scientific survey of the Gyanvapi Complex on the plea of Rastogi.
September 9, 2021 | Allahabad High Court’s Justice Prakash Pahadia stays Varanasi Civil Court’s order of ASI survey while adjudicating the AIM plea against the civil court’s order. Justice Pahadia, later, clubs this case with the original suit of 1991, the judgement which had been reserved in March 2020, by reopening it for further clarification from both sides.
July 25, 2023 | Justice Padia concludes the hearing in those two cases and fixes August 28, 2023, for delivery of the final verdict in the original title suit.
August 11, 2023 | The then Allahabad High Court Chief Justice Pritinker Diwaker passes an order on the administrative side withdrawing the Gyanvapi title dispute cases from the bench of Justice Prakash Padia in the interest of judicial propriety and judicial discipline as well as the transparency in the listing of cases. Later, the matters were assigned to the bench of Chief Justice.
August 28, 2023 | The then Allahabad HC Chief Justice Pritinker Diwaker’s order comes over transfer of all the cases to the CJ bench reasoning that non-observance of the procedure in listing the cases, passing of successive orders for reserving the judgment and again listing the cases before same Judge (Justice Prakash Padia) for hearing though he no longer had the jurisdiction.
November 21, 2023 | Allahabad HC Chief Justice Diwaker retires. The matter is listed before Justice Rohit Ranjan Agarwal.
December 8, 2023 | Justice Rohit Ranjan Agarwal hears all sides involved in the matter and reserves judgment.