Allahabad High Court to take up AIM plea against Varanasi court order tomorrow

PRAYAGRAJ: The Allahabad High Court will on Monday hear the Anjuman Intezamia Masajid (AIM) plea challenging the Varanasi district court's September 12 order by which it had declared that the petition of five Hindu women plaintiffs seeking daily worship of Shringar Gauri and other Hindu deities in Gyanvapi complex was maintainable.
This petition was filed by AIM - the Gyanvapi mosque management committee - on October 12 and has been listed before the single bench of Justice JJ Munir on October 17 as a fresh case.
As per facts of the case, a petition was filed by five Hindu women, seeking daily worship of Shringar Gauri and other deities located on an outer wall of the Gyanvapi mosque.
The district judge, Varanasi had on September 12 dismissed the mosque committee's objection that the application seeking daily worship was not maintainable as the same was barred by the Places of Worship Act, 1991, which provides that there can be no conversion of religious places as it existed on August 15, 1947.
In the present petition before the high court, a prayer has been made seeking stay of operation of the order of the district court by which it had held that the application filed by the five Hindu women was maintainable and decided to hear their plea.
On August 24, Varanasi district judge Ajay Krishna Vishwesha had reserved his verdict on an application filed by the five Hindu women. The verdict was delivered on September 12 holding that their petition is maintainable.