Stay or survey? : All eyes on Gyanvapi as SC's crucial decision expected today

NEW DELHI: Just hours after Allahabad High Court allowed a scientific survey inside Gyanvapi mosque, the masjid committee filed an appeal in the Supreme Court challenging the Allahabad court decision.

The Allahabad High Court earlier dismissed the appeal filed by the masjid committee against the Varanasi district court's order to conduct the survey. Dismissing the plea, Chief Justice Pritinker Diwaker said that the Varanasi court's order for the ASI survey was justified and a scientific survey was required. The Anjuman Masjid Committee had approached the High Court on July 25 challenging the Varanasi court's order directing the ASI to survey the mosque premises.

The masjid committee has requested CJI D Y Chandrachud to consider the case at the earliest. The committee wants SC to stay all such surveys inside the mosque premises. At the same time, some women who claimed to be believers appealed before SC to hear their side before coming to any judgment. CJI promised to consider the case at the earliest.

When the plea reaches the Chief Justice’s bench on Friday, the ambiguity about a Shivlng presence in the building will get the spotlight, meanwhile, the masjid committee will settle for nothing less than a stay order.

If the emergency stay order gets rejected, Archeology officials will start the survey, maybe as soon as tomorrow. As the case reaches the apex court, all eyes will get fixated on Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud. He was a member of the five-judge Constitution Bench which unanimously ordered the construction of the Sri Ram Temple in Ayodhya.

The Archaeological Survey of India has promised to carry out the survey without doing any damage to mosque property. On July 21, the Varanasi court ordered the ASI to conduct a detailed survey of the plot where the mosque stands, next to the Kashi Vishwanath temple.