The Supreme Court will hear on April 1 the petition of the Muslim side against worship in the Vyas Ji basement located in the Gyanvapi complex of Varanasi. The bench of CJI DY Chandrachud, Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Mishra will hear this case. The Muslim side has challenged the decision of Allahabad High Court in the Supreme Court. The High Court had refused to ban the puja in the Vyas basement.
The puja was started after the decision of Varanasi District Court on 31 January. In the court, the Hindu side had claimed that before November 1993, worship services used to take place in the Vyas basement but the then state government had stopped it. The Hindu side had demanded from the court to be given the right to start this puja again. The Muslim side had demanded dismissal of the petition citing the Place of Worship Act. But the court rejected the petition of the Muslim side and gave the Hindu side the right to worship in the Vyas basement of Gyanvapi.
This place, known as Vyas Ji Ka Tahkhana, was sealed after the demolition of Babri Masjid in 1992. The then Chief Minister Kalyan Singh had resigned immediately after the demolition. Next year, in the assembly elections, a government led by Mulayam Singh Yadav was formed. The state government then cited law and order concerns and the basement ‘temple’ was sealed.
The Allahabad High Court said that the Muslim side had miserably failed to demonstrate its prima facie possession of the basement. This essentially leads to a prima facie conclusion about the Vyas family’s occupation of the basement. The Muslim side did not claim the basement from the Vyas family at any time after 1937 until December 1993.