The Shahi Jama Masjid’s management committee in Sambhal has petitioned the Supreme Court to overturn the civil judge’s (Senior Division) decision to permit a survey of the Mughal-era mosque, which Hindus contend was constructed by demolishing a Hindu temple.
The Special Leave Petition, which among other things requests an ex-parte ad-interim stay on the implementation of the November 19 trial court ruling, is scheduled to be heard by a bench consisting of Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar.
According to the plea, the mosque has been used by Muslims as a place of worship continuously since the 16th century, but the case was handled in “hot haste” after eight plaintiffs filed a lawsuit alleging that it was constructed after demolishing the “Shri Hari Har Temple.”
According to the plea, the trial court granted the request to appoint an Advocate Commissioner to conduct a survey of the mosque in an ex-parte decision on November 19, the same day the suit was brought.
It further stated that the order provided no explanation for the application’s ex parte consideration or approval. It further noted that the court provided no justification or terms of reference for the survey.
According to the mosque administration, the Advocate Commissioner, the plaintiffs’ attorneys, and the police came at the mosque to conduct the survey within two hours of the order. The survey began at 6 p.m. and lasted until 8.30 p.m.
On the morning of November 24, when the crew returned for a second survey, it requested that worshippers who were in the mosque for dawn prayers vacate the grounds, according to the report.
The plea added: “The hot haste in which the matter proceeded and a subsequent survey was suddenly conducted, gave rise to apprehensions in the mind of the residents of the area, which brought them outside their house.”
Violence erupted after the survey crew arrived at the mosque that day, and four individuals were shot and killed just meters from the mosque. However, police said they did not fire the rounds. “We used only non-lethal weapons when the crowd resorted to stone pelting. Our own men have suffered injuries,” said Sambhal SP Krishna Kumar Bishnoi. Bishnoi said a fifth person, too, died on Sunday, but he likely suffered a heart attack.
The masjid committee’s plea said that “the hot haste in which the survey was allowed and conducted all within a day and suddenly another survey was conducted with a notice of barely six hours, has given rise to widespread communal tensions and threatens the secular and democratic fabric of the nation”.
Additionally, the plea asked the SC to order that the Survey Commissioner’s report be preserved in a sealed cover and that the status quo be upheld until the appeal is resolved.
It asked the court to issue directions to the effect that surveys should not be ordered and executed as a matter of course in cases involving disputes over places of worship without hearing all parties and allowing sufficient time to the aggrieved persons to seek judicial remedies against the order of survey.
The December 14, 2023, Allahabad High Court order permitting a court-monitored survey of the Shahi Idgah Mosque complex next to the Krishna Janmabhoomi Temple in Mathura was halted on January 16 of this year by a bench led by Justice Khanna.
The Supreme Court is presently considering petitions about the conflicts surrounding the Sri Krishna Janmasthan in Mathura and the Gyanvapi complex in Varanasi. The Places of Worship Act, 1991, which forbids a house of worship from changing its religious identity from its original state on August 15, 1947, is also the subject of petitions contesting its constitutionality.
