The bench of Additional District Judge-1 (ADJ-1) Anil Kumar will hear a request on February 15 for an ASI evaluation of the Gyanvapi (Varanasi) complex’s remaining locked vaults (Tehkhana). The petition also asks for the debris and blocked entrances to be removed in order to facilitate access to the places. Due to obstacles like bricks and stones, the ASI has not been able to assess these sites up to this point.
Rakhi Singh, one of the petitioners in the Maa Shringar Gauri case, filed the plea on Monday. This prompted the ASI to survey a portion of the Gyanvapi complex. She also joined the Vishwa Vedic Sanatan Sangh as a founding member.
The ADJ-1st court heard arguments from both sides during the hearing on the most recent plea on Tuesday, February 6th, and scheduled the next date for February 15th. Notably, the ADJ-1st Court in Varanasi took up the case after District Judge Dr. AK Vishvesha retired on January 31st.
The court set February 15 as the date for the upcoming hearing, according to attorney Saurabh Tiwari, who is defending Hindu petitioner Rakhi Singh.
The petitioner, Rakhi Singh, claims that in order to uncover the whole truth about the Gyanvapi complex, it is imperative to inspect the “secret cellars” that are located inside the basements. Adjacent to the Kashi Vishwanath temple are these cellars. The Hindu side has insisted that the current building was constructed on top of an earlier Hindu temple that Aurangzeb had destroyed. The latest ASI survey study on the Gyanvapi complex likewise came to the same conclusion.
Rakshi Singh argues in her appeal that it is essential to investigate the remaining vaults in order to ascertain the property’s religious character—the Gyanvapi premises—in dispute. According to the application, the Gyanvapi premises contain cellars with the numbers N1 through N5 in the north and S1 through S3 in the south. However, the entrances to cellars N1 and S1 are sealed, making them inaccessible.
The lawyers representing the mosque management committee, Anjuman Intezamia Masjid (AIM), disagreed with the request for an ASI survey of the two remaining closed vaults, N1 and S1. Their attorney disputed the request for a survey, arguing that there was no justification for requiring one of the other basements to be surveyed.
It is important to remember that the Gyanvapi complex has eight cellars in total, located in both north and south directions. Two cellars, N1 and S1, remain locked, although six of them have already undergone an ASI survey.
The survey of the N-1 basement on the north side and the S-1 basement on the south side of the Gyanpavi complex, according to the counsel for the Hindu petitioner, could not have been completed earlier since the entrance to both vaults was obstructed by bricks and stones. The weight of the entire building is not supported by the closed doors. Therefore, it would be possible to conduct a thorough investigation of every basement that still exists without endangering the current building.
A map of the shuttered basements is also provided in the petition. In response to a petition earlier filed by five female devotees, the court ordered a survey of the Gyanvapi complex. It did not, however, include the wazukhana, which was used for ceremonial ablutions prior to namaz.
The ASI Survey, which was widely covered by Opindia, revealed the existence of a Hindu temple that predated the present building and yielded artefacts, including idols of Hindu deities.
Last week, the court approved regular prayers in the southern cellar in response to a petition from Shailendra Kumar Pathak Vyas. He claimed that, up until December 1993, priest Somnath Vyas, the grandfather of his mother, would offer prayers there.
He advised Mulayam Singh Yadav to deny the priest access to the cellar while he was chief minister of Uttar Pradesh. Subsequently, Chief Minister Yadav secured it with a steel grill and locked it.
As per the court’s directive, a priest designated by the Kashi Vishwanath temple trust is offering prayers in the southern cellar.
