Allahabad: Allahabad High Court allows puja to continue at Gyanvapi. The Allahabad High Court’s landmark ruling dismissed the petition filed by the church committee challenging the Varanasi district court’s decision to allow Hindus to worship. The verdict was given by a bench headed by Justice Rohit Ranjan Agarwal.
On January 31, the Varanasi District Court gave permission to perform puja at the Vyas Tehkhana on the south side of the Gyanvapi mosque. The court’s order was on a petition filed by a person named Shailendra Kumar Pathak, who showed that his grandfather Somnath Vyas had performed puja there till December 1993.
His demand was to allow him to enter the Tehkhana and continue the puja as he has traditionally been performing the puja. The Varani district court’s order came after the release of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) report on Gyanvapi.
The ASI survey report stated that the mosque was built on the ruins of a Hindu temple during the reign of Aurangzeb. But the church committee denied the argument raised by the petitioner. The committee was of the view that there were no idols in the Tehkhana and therefore the claim that prayers were offered there till 1993 was wrong.
