NEW DELHI: In an important development, a district court in Mathura has on Saturday ordered a survey of the Shahi Idgah Mosque, adjacent to the Shri Krishna Janmabhoomi.
Acting on a plea by the president of the Hindu Sena Vishnu Gupta and vice president Surjit Singh Yadav, Civil Judge (third) Sonika Verma passed the order.
The court ordered the Amin (a revenue official) to conduct the survey of the disputed site and submit the report by January 20, when the matter would come for hearing again.
In their plea, both the petitioners contended that the Shahi Idgah Mosque had been built by Mughal emperor Aurangzeb after demolishing a part of the Shri Krishna Janmabhoomi.
The petitioners claimed ownership over the entire 13.37 acres of land on which they were situated.
They have also challenged the 1968 agreement between the Shahi Idgah Mosque Committee and the Shri Krishna Janmabhoomi Trust allowing the Mosque to continue to exist and use the land on which it was situated.
The petitioners have also sought a videography survey of the disputed site on the lines of the videography survey of the Gyanvapi Mosque, which was adjacent to the Kashi Vishwanath Temple in Varanasi.
Earlier, the Allahabad High Court had ordered the Mathura court to dispose of the petition seeking a videography survey of the entire land on which the Shri Krishna Janmabhoomi was situated, within four months.
A total of nine petitions were pending in the Mathura district courts with regard to the ownership claims of the Shri Krishna Janmabhoomi-Shahi Idgah Mosque Complex. All the petitions were filed by Hindu parties.
A civil suit, filed in a Mathura court by 'Bhagwan Shrikrishna Virajman' claimed entire birth place of Lord Krishna and sought removal of encroachment of superstructure built as Shahi Idgah masjid over there.
The plaint, filed on behalf of deity, considered as minor, and eight followers of Sanathan Hindu Dharma, sought complete control of 13.73 acres of land in Mathura with the temple complex area at Katra Keshav Dev.
The plaintiffs claimed that Shri Krishna Jamnasthan Sewa Sansthan worked against interests of deity and devotees and fraudulently entered into a compromise with the Committee of Management Trust Masjid Idgah on October 12/17, 1968 conceding a considerable portion of the property to the trust. They sought to exercise their right to worship under Article 25 and manage the temple under Article 26 of the Constitution.
Bhagwan Shrikrishna Virajman, represented by next friend Ranjana Agnihotri and the devotees including advocate Karunesh Kumar Shukla through their advocates Hari Shankar Jain and Vishnu Shankar Jain claimed army of Aurangzeb who ruled between 1658 and 1707 partly succeeded to demolish Keshav Dev temple and construction was raised as Idgah masjid. They quoted historian Jadu Nath Sarkar who wrote Keshav Dev temple was razed to the ground on 1670 and a mosque was built over there.
