IN an important development, the Supreme Court has ordered that no suit shall be registered against any places of worship in India until further orders.
It has also directed that in the suits already pending before different courts across the country, no effective Orders or final Orders, including Orders for the survey of the places of worship, shall be passed until further orders.
A Bench comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI) Sanjiv Khanna, Justice P.V. Sanjay Kumar and Justice K.V. Viswanathan passed the Order to this effect. The Bench took note of the petitions challenging the validity of the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991 and petitions seeking to enforce the Act. The Bench noted that since the matter is sub-judice before it, it would be prudent to pass an interim Order.
The Bench passed the interim Order even as a battery of senior lawyers opposing the 1991 Act vehemently opposed any stay Order. At one point, CJI Khanna cautioned that if he was not allowed to pass the Order in court, he would pass it in the chambers.
Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta, who was appearing for the Union government, also resisted the passing of the interim Order, contending that any stranger who was not a party to a suit in the matter could not appear before the court and request a stay on all proceedings.
Attack on multiple sites
The interim Order passed by the Bench is likely to cease, at least temporarily, the relentless attacks on multiple places of worship of Muslims, including the Shahi Jama Masjid in Sambhal, the Gyanvapi Mosque in Varanasi, the Shahi Eidgah Masjid in Mathura and the Ajmer Dargah in Rajasthan, which have been the target of at least 18 suits.
Shahi Jama Masjid, Sambhal
The Shahi Jama Masjid in Sambhal is the oldest surviving Mughal-era mosque in South Asia. Right-wing Hindu groups in India claim that it is the site of a temple and the tenth avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu, Kalki, will appear among the descendants of the Brahmin priest of that temple.
A suit was filed by eight plaintiffs claiming that the mosque is actually ‘Shri Hari Har Temple’. Among other things, the plaintiffs sought directions to the effect that they have a right to access the Jama Masjid. They also sought an injunction against the defendants, the management committee of the mosque, from creating any hurdle in accessing the mosque.
The suit was accompanied by an application seeking the appointment of an advocate commissioner to conduct a survey of the mosque. The suit was filed on November 19, 2024. On the same day, Judge Aditya Singh passed an ex parte Order appointing an advocate commissioner for the survey of the mosque.
Subsequently, two surveys of the mosque were conducted in quick succession on November 19 and 24. The second survey led to violence between local Muslim residents and the Uttar Pradesh police, in which five Muslim residents were killed.
The management committee of the mosque subsequently approached the Supreme Court, where a two-judge Bench comprising CJI Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar interdicted the civil judge, Sambhal, from hearing a suit concerning the survey of the Jama Masjid till the appeal filed by the management committee of the mosque was listed before the Allahabad High Court.
Gyanvapi Mosque in Varanasi
The Gyanvapi Mosque is located in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh. The first case was filed in a Varanasi civil court in 1991 by devotees of ‘Swayambhu Lord Vishweshwar’. They claimed that the Gyanvapi Mosque site was originally a temple and asked for permission to worship on the property.
A civil suit has also been filed by five plaintiffs, seeking a decree declaring that they are entitled to offer prayers within the mosque complex.
In their suit, the plaintiffs have sought a declaration from the court that they are entitled to darshan, pooja and performance of all the rituals of Maa Shringar Gauri, Lord Ganesh, Lord Hanuman and other visible and invisible deities allegedly within the premises of the Gyanvapi Mosque.
Last year, the Allahabad High Court turned down the petitions filed by the Anjuman Intezamia Masjid against the Orders of the trial court passed on October 18, 1997 and September 23, 1998 and holding that the suit seeking determination of the religious character of the Gyanvapi Mosque was not barred by the Places of Worship Act.
On merits, the high court held that the “religious character” of the Gyanvapi Mosque could only be ascertained by the trial court after considering the pleadings of the parties and evidence led in support of the pleadings, adding that the Act of 1991 only bars conversion of places of worship but it does not define or lay down any procedure for determining the religious character of a place of worship that existed on August 15, 1947.
A Supreme Court Bench led by former CJI Dr D.Y. Chandrachud had refused to interfere with the Allahabad High Court's Order allowing the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) to conduct a scientific survey of the Gyanvapi Mosque premises.
Shahi Eidgah Masjid in Mathura
Several right-wing Hindu organisations claim that the mosque was built at the birthplace of the Hindu god Krishna. Hindus want possession of the land and the right to worship in the mosque till their petitions are disposed of.
A Bench headed by CJI Khanna is currently seized of the matter. The Bench has continued to stay the high court Order directing inspection of the mosque.
Ajmer Dargah in Rajasthan
Recently, a civil court in Ajmer issued notices on a suit claiming that a Lord Shiva temple existed at the site of the 13th Century dargah of Sufi mystic Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti in Ajmer.
The Places of Worship Act
The Places of Worship Act was enacted in 1991 by the Indian Parliament to prohibit the conversion of any place of worship and to provide for the maintenance of the religious character of any place of worship as it existed on August 15, 1947 and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.
Section 2(c) of the Act, defines ‘place of worship’ to mean a temple, mosque, gurudwara, church, monastery or any other place of public religious worship of any religious denomination or any section thereof, by whatever name called.
Section 3 of the Act bars the conversion of places of worship. Under the Act, ‘conversion’, with its grammatical variations, includes alteration or change of whatever nature.
The only place of worship exempt from the Act was the Babri Masjid, which was subsequently demolished by a Hindutva mob led, among others, by the former deputy Prime Minister of India L.K. Advani. In 2019, a five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court of India handed over the site of the demolished mosque to a trust to build a Ram Temple.
During the hearing today, Justice Viswanathan observed that Section 3 “is a manifestation of constitutional principles”.
“Civil courts cannot run a race with the Supreme Court. That is why there has to be a stay,” Justice Viswanathan said, referring to a five-judge Bench's observations in the Ayodhya case.
In the Ayodhya case, the Bench had said that the Places of Worship Act passed by the Parliament protected and secured the fundamental values of the Constitution.
The Bench had observed: “The State has, by enacting the law, enforced a constitutional commitment and operationalised its constitutional obligations to uphold the equality of all religions and secularism which is a part of the basic features of the Constitution.
“The Places of Worship Act imposes a non-derogable obligation towards enforcing our commitment to secularism under the Indian Constitution. The law is hence a legislative instrument designed to protect the secular features of the Indian polity, which is one of the basic features of the Constitution.”
The five-judge Bench added, “In providing a guarantee for the preservation of the religious character of places of public worship as they existed on August 15, 1947, and against the conversion of places of public worship, the Parliament determined that independence from colonial rule furnishes a constitutional basis for healing the injustices of the past by providing the confidence to every religious community that their places of worship will be preserved and that their character will not be altered.”
In March 2021, the Supreme Court, while hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and advocate Ashwini Upadhyay challenging the constitutional validity of the Places of Worship Act, 1991, had issued a notice in the matter.
In his plea, Upadhyay contended that the 1991 Act took away the rights of Hindus, Jain, Buddhists and Sikhs to restore their places of worship destroyed by “barbaric invaders”.
The plea added that the Act excluded from its application the birthplace of Lord Rama (which is claimed to be the site of the demolished Babri Masjid) but included the birthplace of Lord Krishna (which is climbed to be the site of the Shahi Eidgah Masjid in Mathura), though both were considered the incarnation of Lord Vishnu and were equally worshipped. The Act, the plea contended, was, therefore, arbitrary and irrational.
On the other hand, Jamiat Ulema-i-Hind filed a petition in 2022 seeking proper enforcement of the 1991 Act.
Meanwhile, dozens of intervention applications were filed in the Supreme Court by various political parties, including the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the Indian Union Muslim League and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) seeking to support the validity of the Places of Worship Act.
Individual members of Parliament namely Manoj Kumar Jha from the Rashtriya Janta Dal (RJD), and Thol Thirumavalavan from DMK have also filed intervention applications supporting the Act.
Many former bureaucrats and eminent citizens have also filed intervention applications in support of the Act.