Shahi Idgah case: Supreme Court to hear on Dec 9 plea of mosque committee over dispute at Mathura complex

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday said it will hear on December 9 a plea of the mosque committee against the Allahabad High Court rejecting its petition challenging the maintainability of 18 cases of the Hindu side related to the Krishna Janmabhoomi-Shahi Idgah dispute in Mathura.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar said it will accord a detailed hearing on the plea at 2 pm on December 9.

"This we will hear at length. We will take it up on December 9, at 2 pm... We have to decide what is the legal position," the CJI said.

Speaking for the bench, the CJI said he prima facie felt that an intra-court appeal would lie against the single judge bench order of August 1 of the high court.

"We will certainly give you an opportunity to argue," the bench said.

On August 1, the high court rejected the plea of the Committee of Management, Trust Shahi Masjid Idgah challenging the maintainability of 18 cases related to the temple-mosque dispute in Mathura, and ruled that the “religious character” of Shahi Idgah needs to be determined.

The mosque committee's contention was that the suits filed by Hindu litigants relating to the dispute over the Krishna Janmabhoomi temple and the adjacent mosque violated the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act -- and were thus not maintainable.

The 1991 Act prohibits changing the religious character of any shrine from what existed on the day of the country's Independence. It exempted only the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute from its purview.

The cases filed by the Hindu side seek the “removal” of the Aurangzeb-era mosque they claim was built after demolishing a temple that once stood there.

The high court said the 1991 Act did not define the term “religious character” and the "disputed" place cannot have a dual religious character -- of a temple and a mosque, which are “adverse to each other” -- at the same time.

“Either the place is a temple or a mosque. Thus, I find that the religious character of the disputed place as it existed on August 15, 1947, is to be determined by documentary as well as oral evidence led by both the parties,” the high court said.

The high court concluded that the cases "do not appear to be barred by any provisions of the Wakf Act, 1995: the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991; the Specific Relief Act, 1963; the Limitation Act, 1963 and Order XIII Rule 3A of the Code of Civil Procedure Code, 1908".

Hindu side counsel Vishnu Shankar Jain had said that with the dismissal of the plea challenging maintainability, the high court will continue to hear all related cases on the temple-mosque issue.

Jain also said the Hindu side will now move the Supreme Court asking it to vacate its stay on an earlier Allahabad High Court order that had allowed a survey of the mosque.

The Hindu litigants claim the mosque holds signs suggesting that it was a temple once.

The mosque management committee and the Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board had argued that the suits were barred under Places of Worship Act and other laws. On May 31, the Allahabad High Court reserved its judgment on this maintainability plea after hearing both sides.

However, the court reopened the hearing at the request of Shahi Idgah counsel Mehmood Pracha. The judgment, pronounced Thursday, was finally reserved on June 6.

The Mathura dispute mirrors the legal tussle in Varanasi, where the Gyanvapi mosque and the Kashi Vishwanath temple are located next to each other.