In a significant judgment, District Judge Dr Ajay Kumar Vishwesh of the Varanasi court on Wednesday granted permission to provide copies of the Archaeological Survey of India’s (ASI) scientific survey of the Gyanvapi complex to both Hindu and Muslim parties.
The District Judge issued the ruling after hearing all the parties concerned. The ASI had already submitted the report earlier this month. The copies of the survey report are likely to be handed over to the relevant parties by tomorrow.
Advocate Vishnu Shankar Jain, the counsel of the Hindu side, said that the court heard the arguments of both the Hindu and Muslim parties today and decided to provide hard copies of the ASI report to both sides.
The ASI was averse to providing the report through e-mail and soft copy, leading to an agreement by both parties to receive a hard copy of the report. The parties will submit applications to the court to obtain the hard copies.
A request had been made to the court to provide a copy of the survey report on behalf of the plaintiffs of the Maa Shringar Gauri case, namely Sita Sahu, Rekha Pathak, Manju Vyas, and Lakshmi Devi.
The plaintiff women said that this is an issue of public interest and keeping it a secret will not help anyone.
Rakhi Singh, another plaintiff from the Hindu side, said that the plaintiff has the right to study the report submitted in the court.
At the same time, the Anjuman Intejamia Masjid Committee asserted that if the survey report is provided to the plaintiff women, it should also be made available to them.