The Supreme Court on Thursday asked the Masjid Intezamia Committee of Gyanvapi mosque to approach Allahabad High Court against the Varanasi District Court’s order allowing Hindus to perform puja of the deities inside the southern caller of Gyanvapi mosque located adjacent to Kashi Vishwanath temple.

Lawyers representing the Masjid Committee said that they were told by the Supreme Court Registrar that Chief Justice DY Chandrachud had asked them to approach the High Court.

The Masjid Committee had approached the Supreme Court’s Registrar for an urgent hearing of its application seeking status quo at the Gyanvapi mosque site.

The Gyanvapi Mosque committee in its application seeking status quo at the mosque site has said that the administration was acting in ‘hot haste’ soon after the Varanasi Court’s order to perform the “Puja” at night.

The Masjid Committee has said that these actions, occurring in the middle of the night, were aimed to preempt any legal challenge to the district court order by the mosque managing committee.

On January 31, Varanasi district court allowed the Hindu side to offer prayers in the southern cellar of Gyanvapi mosque.

The court directed the Varanasi district magistrate to make arrangements within seven days for “puja” to be performed by the Hindu side and a poojari nominated by Shri Kashi Vishwanath Temple Trust.

After the order of the court, “puja” and “aarti” were performed in the early hours of intervening night.

The district court has issued the order on the plea of head priest of Acharya Ved Vyas Peeth temple, Shailendra Kumar Pathak Vyas, seeking worship of Shringar Gauri and other visible, and invisible deities in the cellar of the mosque. Vyas is the scion of the family which was performing “puja” in this cellar till December 1993.

The plea says Vyas’s maternal grandfather, priest Somnath Vyas, used to perform prayers there till 1993 when the cellar was closed by the authorities.

The ASI survey, ordered by the same court, in connection with a related case, suggested that the mosque was constructed during Aurangzeb’s rule over the remains of a Hindu temple.