Varanasi’s district judge will hear the case on Monday, just days after the Supreme Court declined to intervene in the Gyanvapi mosque survey.
The Hindu petitioners’ case was transferred from a Varanasi civil judge to a district judge on Friday so that the mosque management committee’s objections to the survey could be decided. It stated that the Places of Worship Act does not prohibit determining a place’s religious character.
The Supreme Court stated that the “complexities and sensitivity” of the case required a “more senior and experienced hand.” The survey was ordered by a Varanasi civil court in April after five women filed a lawsuit seeking daily prayers and worship rights at the Maa Shringar Gauri Sthal, a Hindu shrine behind the western wall of the Kashi Vishwanath Temple-Gyanvapi Mosque complex.
Following the Supreme Court’s order, all files related to the case were transferred to the court of district judge Ajay Krishna Vishvesha on Saturday, according to Subhash Nandan Chaturvedi, one of the Hindu petitioners’ lawyers.
