Gyanvapi row: Next hearing on August 28

On August 17, the counsel for plaintiffs 2 to 5, Vishnu Shankar Jain, filed an objection to the plea in court.

A Varanasi court has fixed August 28 as the next date of hearing in an application, filed by the Ajuman Intezamia Masajid Committee (AIMC), seeking an order to stop the ongoing survey by the Archeological Survey of India of the Gyanvapi mosque complex. On Tuesday, the matter came up for hearing in the court of additional district judge.

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AIMC filed the application in the Varanasi district court on August 9. The counsel for the committee, Mumtaz Ahmad, said the plaintiffs 2 to 5 didn’t deposit the amount of expenditure of the survey by the ASI. As the ASI hasn’t given any vocal or written information to AIMC about the survey, the proceedings of the survey were against the rule, the counsel argued. In their plea, the petitioner has prayed to the court to pass an order to stop the ongoing ASI survey.

On August 17, the counsel for plaintiffs 2 to 5, Vishnu Shankar Jain, filed an objection to the plea in court.

Plaintiff 1 of the Shringar Gauri-Gyanvapi case Rakhi Singh had filed an application seeking an order to seal certain portions of the Gyanvapi premises and regulate the number of people who offer namaz in the complex in order to protect the Hindu signs and symbols that were claimed to have been found during a court-mandated survey in May 2022.

On behalf of Rakhi Singh, her counsel Saurabh Tiwari and Anupam Dwivedi filed the application in the Varanasi district court on August 11. On August 17, AIMC prayed to the court to grant it time to file an objection.