After Varanasi Court refuses ASI survey of Gyanvapi's Wuzukhana area, Allahabad HC judge recuses from revision

PRAYAGRAJ: The Allahabad High Court’s Justice Manish Kumar Nigam has recused from hearing a revision plea seeking setting aside of an order refusing a survey by the Archeological Survey of India (ASI) of the Wuzukhana area (except the 'shivling') inside the Gyanvapi mosque.

The previous order refusing the survey was passed by a District Court in Varanasi in October last year. The matter will now be listed before another bench and is likely to come up for hearing by the end of this month.

The revision was moved by the main plaintiff in the Shringar Gauri worshipping suit of 2022, one Rakhi Singh, through Adv. Saurabh Tiwari. 

Pressing that a survey of the Wuzukhana area is necessary in the interest of justice to determine the religious character of the area, she has submitted that the same shall benefit the plaintiff(s) and defendants alike.

It has also been contended that the District Judge had failed to exercise the jurisdiction vested in it by law and had erred in stating that in its July 21, 2023 order (for the Survey of Gyanvapi premises) it had deliberately excluded the duly protected area from the survey, as no prayer seeking survey of the protected area had been made at all in the first place.

Dismissing her application District Judge Ajay Krishna Vishwesha had opined that it would be improper to direct an ASI survey of the area as it would violate an earlier Supreme Court order directing to protect the area where the ‘Shivling’ was found.