Qutub mosque a protected monument: Centre to Delhi HC on Waqf prayer plea

The Union government on Monday told the Delhi high court that a mosque located at the entrance of the Qutub complex, but not a part of the Qutub enclosure, is a protected monument under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1958, and hence no prayers can be offered there

The Union government on Monday told the Delhi high court that a mosque located at the entrance of the Qutub complex, but not a part of the Qutub enclosure, is a protected monument under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1958, and hence no prayers can be offered there.

The Qutub Minar, the Quwwat ul Islam mosque that stands beside it and a new fort north of the mosque formed “the nucleus” of Delhi’s first iteration as an imperial city. (Sanjeev Verma/HT PHOTO)

Even though it’s an unnamed mosque, but local residents in Mehrauli it ‘Mughal mosque’, and it has nothing to do with the constructions by the Slave dynasty, the government said.

The Centre’s submission came on a petition by the Delhi Waqf Board which has challenged the prohibition on the offering of namaz at the mosque.

Justice Manoj Kumar Ohri on Monday granted time to the Centre to seek instructions on the plea by the managing committee of the Delhi Waqf Board, and listed the case for further hearing on September 12.

Advocate Kirtiman Singh, appearing for the Centre, said a case concerning the mosque was also going on before a lower court in Saket. However, advocate Wajeeh Shafiq for Waqf Board, said that the proceedings before the Saket court concern a different mosque.

Advocate M Sufian Siddiqui, also appearing for the Waqf Board, urged the court to hear the case as early as possible, saying that the mosque has remained shut for prayers since May.

The Waqb Board, in its petition, has said that the mosque in question is a duly gazette notified waqf property that has an appointed Imam and Moazzin, and not the contentious Quwwattul Islam Mosque. The board’s lawyer had submitted that namaz was regularly performed at the mosque and it has never been closed for worship, however, the officials of ASI in an “absolutely unlawful, arbitrary and precipitous manner” completely stopped the namaz on May 13, 2022, without serving any notice or order.

A plea, pending before a Saket court, has prayed for the restoration of Hindu and Jain deities inside the Qutub Minar complex on the ground that 27 temples were partly demolished by Qutubuddin Aibak, a general in the army of Mohamad Gauri, and that Quwwat-ul-Islam Mosque was raised inside the complex by reusing the material.