JOIN USAllahabad HC rejects petition seeking opening of closed rooms in Taj Mahal
The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court on Thursday rejected a petition seeking a directive to the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) to open the closed rooms inside the Taj Mahal. The plea had sought to ascertain if there were Hindu idols and scriptures to validate the claim that the 'Monument of Love', as contended by the saffron activists, was 'Tejo Mahal', a Shiva Temple.
A double bench comprising Justice D K Upadhyaya and Justice Subhash Vidyarthi also rebuked the petitioner Rajanish Kumar Singh, who claimed to be the media in-charge of BJP's Ayodhya district unit, and asked him to get himself admitted to some university and do research on Taj Mahal. The bench also warned him not to misuse PILs for such purposes.
The court found the petition ''not maintainable" and said that the demands made in the petition could only be ascertained through an ''academic research'' and not judicial orders.
Singh's counsel Rudra Pratap Singh said that he would now approach the Supreme Court.
In his petition, Singh had contended that there were more than twenty closed rooms in the basement and upper floors of the Taj Mahal, which were not open to the public. He claimed that there were Hindu idols and scriptures in those rooms which proved that Taj Mahal was a Shiva Temple.
Singh also sought the court's directive to the government to form a committee to examine the claims by the saffron activists that Mughal emperor Shah Jahan had converted the Shiva Temple into a memorial for his wife Mumtaz Mahal after her death.
Saffron activists had, in the past, recited 'Shiv Chalisa' (hymns praising Lord Shiva) inside the Taj Mahal complex in Agra on the occasion of 'Mahashivratri'. Some members of Hindu Jagaran Manch, a saffron outfit, including its district president Gauravn Thakur, were arrested by the police after they waved saffron flags inside the monument a few months ago.