The appeal by the Masjid Committee is listed Tuesday before a Supreme Court bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud and P S Narasimha.
The Supreme Court is likely to hear Tuesday a plea by the Committee of Management of Anjuman Intezamia Masjid, Varanasi, challenging the videography survey ordered by a local court of the Maa Shringar Gauri Sthal in the Kashi Vishwanath temple-Gyanvapi mosque complex. The Muslim body contends that it is contrary to provisions of the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act 1991.
The Act states that the nature of all places of worship, except Ram Janmabhoomi–Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, shall be maintained as it was on August 15, 1947 and that no suit shall lie in any court with respect to the conversion of the religious character of a place of worship, as existing on that date.
Incidentally, the Act itself is under challenge before the top court with at least two pending petitions questioning its Constitutional validity on the ground that it bars judicial review, which is a basic feature of the Constitution, and abridges the right to religion of Hindus, Jains, Buddhists and Sikhs.
Although the SC issued notice on one of them in March 2021, the Centre is yet to file its reply.
The appeal by the Masjid Committee, which challenges the April 21, 2022 Allahabad High Court ruling dismissing its petition against the order of a Varanasi court ordering the videographic survey of the disputed side, is listed Tuesday before a Supreme Court bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud and P S Narasimha.
Significantly, a five-judge Constitution bench of the then Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi and Justices S A Bobde, D Y Chandrachud, Ashok Bhushan and S Abdul Nazeer had, in the Ayodhya judgment of November 9, 2019, lauded the Places of Worship Act as “a legislative instrument designed to protect the secular features of the Indian polity, which is one of the basic features of the Constitution”.
In that 5-0 unanimous verdict — on the title suit — in the wake of the Babri Masjid demolition, the Supreme Court ruled that the 2.77 acres of disputed land in Ayodhya would be handed over to a trust for the construction of a Ram Mandir and a 5-acre plot allotted to the Sunni Waqf Board at an alternate site.
