TCN Staff Correspondent
It was a 1986 district court order in Uttar Pradesh that set off a chain of events, which eventually led to the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya. In his judgment on the Ayodhya title suit in 2010, Justice S.U. Khan of the Allahabad High Court highlighted how this seemingly inconspicuous order had “catapulted the dispute to the national (and even international) level”. He had added that the conflict before this was hardly known beyond Ayodhya and Faizabad. This moment was a key turning point.
The Babri Masjid dispute began with the mysterious placement of an idol of Lord Ram inside the mosque in 1949, and it led to restricted access to the mosque. Only a few priests were allowed for decades to perform rituals. The devotees could only view the deity and offer prayers from outside. However, an advocate who was not even related to the case filed an appeal before district judge K.N. Pandey in Faizabad on January 31, 1986. He prayed that the gates of the mosque be opened for Hindus to worship. The judge granted the appeal the very next day. Within minutes, the gates of the mosque were opened.
The decision, however, shocked Justice Khan in 2010. He noted that the appeal had been filed by a “stranger” and was “not maintainable”. He said one of the parties to the case had been wrongly excluded. He also expressed his surprise that the district magistrate and the police had stated there would be no issues with opening the locks.
“There was no reason to show such undue haste,” Justice Khan had observed and emphasised that the appeal had neither legal merit nor proper opposition.
Escalating the Gyanvapi Dispute
The pattern of judicial involvement in religious disputes became even clearer with the Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi, where claims about the mosque standing on the ruins of a Hindu temple sparked new legal battle. The dispute began in 1991 when a case was filed by devotees – claiming that the mosque originally stands at the site of a temple. Nothing happened in the case largely until 2020. The Allahabad High Court began allowing hearings in the matter once again, drewing attention to its maintainability.
The controversy deepened in 2021, when a civil court in Varanasi ordered a videographic survey of the mosque despite the provisions of the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act prohibiting any change to the religious character of places of worship as they existed on August 15, 1947. This order was challenged in higher courts. But there was no stay on the district court’s order. During the survey conducted by court commissioners, a black-colour cylindrical structure was discovered in the wazukhana (a place for ablution) of the mosque. The petitioners described it to be “Shivling”, while the mosque managing committee claimed it was a fountain. This sparked heated debates about the mosque’s religious character. While some called for it to be sealed, others demanded a reversal of the restrictions.
The Gyanvapi case moved through the courts. The Allahabad High Court and the Supreme Court involved in a complex balancing act. On May 20, then Chief Justice of India, Dr D.Y. Chandrachud, who had been part of the bench, which decided the Ayodhya case, made an observation that some saw as opening the door for further litigations on similar lines. He remarked that since the survey was “purely investigatory”, it would not affect the mosque’s religious character. This is contradictory to the Supreme Court’s previous position in the Ayodhya judgment. The verdict, though controversial, had upheld the Places of Worship Act as a safeguard against religious disputes.
Impact on Other Religious Disputes
Chandrachud’s observation set a precedent – which led to several new petitions. It appears to have emboldened the demand for similar investigations at other religious sites. Take Mathura for example, permission for the survey of the Shahi Idgah mosque has been sought. The petitioners claim that the mosque is built on the birthplace of Lord Krishna.
Similar petitions have surfaced in other parts of the country, such as the the Qutb Minar in Delhi, Kamal-ud-Din mosque in Madhya Pradesh and Shahi Jama Masjid at Sambhal in Uttar Pradesh, where Hindus claim that the structure was originally a temple before being converted into a mosque.
In Shahi Idgah mosque case that has already been subject to several petitions, a district court recently ruled that the Places of Worship Act did not apply as the case fell within one of the exceptions in the legislation. Perhaps, emboldened by judicial rhetoric in higher courts, lower courts are increasingly willing entertaining such disputes.
The Taj Mahal Exception
The Allahabad High Court, in contrast, took a firm stand in dismissing a petition filed in May 2022 – seeking an archaeological survey of the Taj Mahal. The court said that such matters were “non-justiciable” and should be left to historians. The judgment, in a way, clarified that not all petitions related to ancient monuments would be entertained.
A series of legal developments began taking place from the Gyanvapi case, wherein surveys and probes into the religious character of ancient religious structures was emphasised. As a large number of litigants began seeking to challenge the status quo of religious monuments, there is a concern that the judiciary’s handling of such cases may chip away the protections offered by the Places of Worship Act.
By suggesting in the Gyanvapi case that an investigatory survey may be permissible despite the Act’s clear prohibitions, Justice D.Y. Chandrachud opened the floodgates for a series of litigations that are targeting religious sites across India.