A district court has rejected the plea of the Hindu side for survey and excavation of the entire Gyanvapi complex.
Civil Judge (Senior Division Fast Track) Yugul Shambhu gave the judgment on Friday after hearing the arguments of the Muslim and Hindu sides.
The court’s decision pertains to a 1991 case.
Following the judgment, Advocate Vijay Shankar Rastogi of the Hindu side said they would appeal in the high court against the decision. He said there was a demand for additional surveys from our side which has been rejected. “We had demanded that the survey which has been done is incomplete,” he added.
The petitioners had claimed that the previous ASI survey was incomplete. The ASI cannot give an accurate report without excavation and therefore excavation should be done in the Gyanvapi complex by the ASI.
Anjuman Intejamia Committee had presented its arguments on the petition. The committee’s lawyers had said when the Hindu side appealed to raise the matter in the Allahabad High Court and the Supreme Court, there is no justification for arguing the matter in the subordinate court.
However, the main plaintiff in the case, who filed this case in 1991, passed away. Now, the case is handed over to Vadamitra or Amicus Curiae.
Vadamitra said on the previous date that the ASI had surveyed application number 9130 of Gyanvapi. However, the pond in the disputed premises and the Shivalinga found in it were not inspected during the commission proceedings. There is no mention of these even in the report.
The ASI’s survey has been described as incomplete. It was said in the argument that proper machines were not used in the survey and remains were not searched by digging at the site. Apart from this, a large area of the campus remains untouched by the survey. There is a possibility of finding much evidence in this.
But lawyers for the Muslim side had also argued that when the ASI survey of the Gyanvapi complex has already been conducted once, there is no justification for conducting a second survey.
They had argued that digging a pit in the mosque premises for the survey would not be practical in any way. This may cause damage to the mosque.
Vadmitra also referred to the order given by the Supreme Court in a 2019 case that if there is a deficiency in the report of the commission’s proceedings, the court can ask for an additional survey report.
As far as the survey of Application No. 9130, 9131, and 9132 is concerned, the order dated April 8, 2021, of the court of Civil Judge (Senior Division Fasttrack) makes it clear that ASI has to survey all three plots.