LUCKNOW: The court of the Additional District Judge-I (ADJ-I) Anil Kumar, on Tuesday, heard the petition filed by Rakhi Singh seeking an ASI survey of the remaining other closed basements on the Gyanvapi mosque complex.
After hearing the arguments of both the Hindu plaintiff and Muslim sides, the court posted the matter for next hearing on February 15.
Notably, after retirement of District judge Dr AK Vishvesha on January 31, the ADJ-1st Court, Varanasi, took up the plea of plaintiff Rakhi Singh who had filed it on Monday seeking an ASI survey of all other closed basements in the complex.
Advocate Saurabh Tiwari, representing Rakhi Singh, said that after hearing both sides, the court fixed February 15 as the date for next hearing.
According to Advocate Tiwari, the Hindu plaintiff submitted that the survey of S-1 basement on the south side and N-1 basement on the north side of the Gyanpavi mosque could not be done earlier as the entry to those cellars was blocked with bricks and stones. There is no load of the entire building on the bricks and stones of the closed doors. In such a situation, a scientific survey of all the remaining basements could be done without causing any damage to the existing building.
However, the plea was opposed by the lawyers of Anjuman Intezamia Masjid (AIM), the mosque management committee.
Petitioner Rakhi Singh is a founding member of Vishwa Vedic Sanatan Sangh and one of the parties along with four other Hindu women plaintiffs in the Shringar Gauri case which led to the survey of the complex by the ASI through the district court order.
Notably, the Gyanvapi complex has total eight cellars in North and South directions. Of these, six have already been surveyed by the ASI. But two of them, N1 & S1are still closed.
The Varanasi district court, through an order of January 31, had allowed regular worship of Hindu deities in the southern cellar of the Gyanvapi mosque. Soon after the order, the southern cellar was opened by the district administration and a priest nominated by the Shree Kashi Vishwanath Temple Trust (SKVTT) performed puja which is going on a daily basis.
The court had allowed regular prayers in the cellar on the petition by Shailendra Kumar Pathak Vyas who had claimed that his maternal grandfather, priest Somnath Vyas used to perform regular puja inside the cellar till December 1993 when the then dispensation headed by Mulayam Singh Yadav got it locked and barricaded by steel grill.
