Supreme Court to hear plea today on Sambhal mosque investigation | Latest news India

The Supreme Court will on Friday hear a petition challenging a trial court’s order ordering a probe into the Shahi Jama Masjid in Uttar Pradesh’s Sambhal, raising questions over its legality and the manner in which the order was passed. The investigation was ordered by a local court in response to a lawsuit claiming that a temple once stood on the site.

The petition, filed by the mosque’s management committee, demands an immediate halt to the investigation, arguing that such investigations, especially of historic places of worship, could worsen communal tensions and undermine the country’s secular fabric.

A bench comprising Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna and Justice PV Sanjay Kumar will take up the plea, which has chosen to bypass the Allahabad High Court, urging the Supreme Court to intervene directly to prevent further communal tension and to strengthen judicial decency in handling sensitive issues. disputes involving historic places of worship.

Also read: PIL in Allahabad HC seeks CBI probe into Sambhal violence

The investigations, conducted on the orders of a local civil court, led to widespread tension in Sambhal, culminating in violent clashes on November 24 that left four people dead and several injured, including police personnel. Police have arrested 25 persons, including political leaders, and named over 2,000 unidentified persons in multiple FIRs.

The dispute centers on the Shahi Jama Masjid in Chandausi, which the commission said has been in continuous use as a mosque since the 16th century. However, a suit filed on November 19, 2024 by eight plaintiffs, including Supreme Court lawyer Hari Shankar Jain, said the mosque was built on the site of a ‘Harihar temple’ and they sought access to the site, which they mentioned. a temple. Hari Shankar Jain and his son, lawyer Vishnu Shankar Jain, have led several such lawsuits, including against the Gyanvapi Mosque adjacent to the Kashi Vishwanath Temple and the Shree Krishna Janmabhoomi-Shahi Idgah conflict in Mathura, urging reclamation of Hindu temple sites.

On the same day, the Civil Court in Sambhal granted an application under Order 26, Rule 9 of the Code of Civil Procedure, appointing an Advocate Commissioner to conduct a survey of the mosque with photography and videography. The order was passed ex parte, without notice to the mosque board. Within hours of the order, the inquiry was conducted and another inquiry was conducted five days later, with barely six hours’ notice to the mosque committee, the plea said.

Also read: Posters of stone pelters are displayed after the Sambhal violence

The petition alleges that these actions were taken with undue haste and without giving the commission an opportunity to challenge the order or take legal action.

“It is under these extraordinary circumstances that the petitioner begs this Hon’ble Court to kindly intervene and stay the proceedings of Civil Suit No. 166 of 2024 pending before the Ld Civil Judge (Senior Division), Sambhal at Chandausi aprons. The haste with which the investigation was authorized and conducted within a day and yet another investigation was suddenly conducted with barely six hours’ notice has given rise to widespread communal tensions and threatens the secular and democratic fabric of the nation,” the spokesperson said. plea, filed through lawyer Fuzail Ahmad Ayyubi.

The committee’s petition argues that the case violates the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act 1991, which prohibits the conversion of the character of a religious place as it existed on August 15, 1947. also cited provisions under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1958, which protects historic places of worship from desecration or misuse.

Furthermore, the petition highlights procedural flaws in the court’s order, including the absence of any rationale or terms of reference for the investigation. It claims such investigations are increasingly being requested in disputes over places of worship, potentially inflaming communal passions across the country.

Also read: Akhilesh Yadav questions the second Sambhal Mosque investigation

“The manner in which an investigation was ordered in this case and has been ordered in some other cases will have an immediate impact on a number of cases across the country that have recently been filed regarding places of worship where such orders will tend to to ignite. common passions are creating law and order problems and damaging the secular fabric of the country,” the plea said.

It is fair to say that while hearing a similar dispute over the Gyanvapi Mosque in Varanasi, the CJI-led bench on November 22 recognized the need to determine the legal viability of a lawsuit – in light of the Places of Worship Act, 1991 – which was filed by a group of Hindu women seeking the right to worship Hindu gods within the mosque complex. In this case too, the mosque’s management committee has argued that all lawsuits from the Hindu side are barred by the 1991 law, which freezes the religious character of all places of worship with effect from August 15, 1947, except the Ayodhya Ram Janmabhoomi- Babri. A Masjid dispute which was excluded from the purview of this Act by the law itself.

Notably, since March 2021, a series of petitions – some seeking to strike down the 1991 law and others seeking strict enforcement of that law – have remained pending in the Supreme Court.