LUCKNOW: Anjuman Intezamia Masajid (AIM), the Gyanvapi mosque management committee, moved Allahabad High Court on Thursday to challenge the Varanasi district court's Wednesday order allowing the Hindu side to perform puja of deities inside the southern cellar on mosque premises.
The matter was brought to the bench of Acting Chief Justice Manoj Kumar Gupta and presented before him by senior advocate SFA Naqvi who said that they had requested an urgent hearing.
However, the ACJ asked Naqvi to move an application for the urgent hearing of the plea before the Registrar Listing. Accordingly, the application was moved and the matter is likely to be taken up soon by the High Court. Earlier, the Muslim side had approached the Supreme Court of India to challenge the Varanasi district court order which had given seven-day time to the district administration to make arrangements for the performance of Puja inside the cellar.
AIM had sought an urgent hearing by the apex court which asked it to approach the Allahabad High Court. The SC Registrar conveyed to AIM that Chief Justice DY Chandrachud had asked them to approach the High Court.
In their application, advocates Nizam Pasha and Fuzail Ahmad Ayyubi representing AIM, submitted that under the garb of the order, the local administration, in "hot haste", had deployed a massive police force on the site and was in the process of cutting the grills located at the southern side of the mosque.
"There is no reason for the administration to undertake this task in ‘hot haste’ in the dead of the night as the order passed by the Trial Court had already given them one week to make the necessary arrangements. The obvious reason for such unseemly haste is that the administration, in collusion with the plaintiffs, is trying to foreclose any attempt by the Mosque Managing Committee to avail of their remedies against the said order by presenting them with a fait accompli," their letter said.
