The Supreme Court on Friday granted an interim stay on the proceedings in the civil suit filed by Hindu petitioners who have sought a survey of the Sambhal’s Jama Masjid in Uttar Pradesh claiming that a Hindu temple existed on the site.
A bench of justices PS Narasimha and AS Chandurkar passed the order on a petition filed by the Sambhal mosque committee, challenging the May 19 order of the Allahabad high court which upheld the survey of the mosque as ordered by the trial court.
The court said that the status quo will stay in force till August 25 when the matter will be taken up again to consider whether the suit proceedings could continue before the trial court. The mosque committee had claimed that the survey of the mosque cannot proceed citing Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991.
According to the 1991 Act, the “religious character” of places of worship as on August 15, 1947 must be maintained and bars the institution of fresh suits or legal proceedings.
Huzefa Ahmadi, counsel for the mosque committee, mentioned that on December 12, 2024, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court passed an interim order restraining courts across the country from entertaining any fresh suits or ordering surveys to determine existence of temple structure underneath existing mosques till the validity of the 1991 law is decided in a batch of petitions being heard by the top court.
Ahmadi said that in light of the order, the HC could not have allowed the survey. “Let there be status quo in view of the stay granted by the three-judge bench,” he said.
The bench said, “There will be status quo till Monday.”
Advocate Vishnu Shankar Jain, representing the Hindu petitioners, argued that the suit is still maintainable as the structure is protected by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI). According to him, this fact itself is sufficient to show that the 1991 Act is not applicable to the Sambhal case.
Jain contended that the plea for deferment of proceedings was taken up in a separate case by another bench hearing the proceedings between the Shahi Idgah mosque committee and Bhagwan Srikrishna Virajman over the land claimed to be the birthplace of Lord Krishna in Mathura.
Ahmadi submitted that Jain is unnecessarily linking the Sambhal case with that of Mathura as he is not aware of the proceedings before other bench.
The court directed the order passed by the other bench to be produced on Monday. “Under what circumstances the order is passed, for that we need to see the order. We don’t want to pass any inconsistent orders.”
Hindus who have filed a suit in the Sambhal case have claimed that the Mughal-era Jama Masjid has been constructed over a pre-existing Harihar temple. Against the civil court’s order directing a survey, the mosque committee had approached the top court in November last year when a stay was ordered while giving time to the committee to approach the high court on the issue.
The court stepped in after violence erupted following the survey of the mosque ordered by a trial court on November 24 last year that left four persons dead. The survey order was passed in a suit filed by the Hindu parties seeking permission for worship at the mosque site.