The solicitors representing the Hindu litigants stated that a Varanasi court on Wednesday decided to grant both parties access to the ASI report on the survey of the Gyanvapi mosque complex, while explicitly stating that the report should not be made public.
According to Madan Mohan Yadav, the lawyer for the Hindu side, District Judge A K Vishvesh ordered that both the Muslim and Hindu parties submit an affidavit promising to keep the report confidential.
In response to a district court order dated July 21, the ASI conducted a scientific survey of the Gyanvapi premises, which are adjacent to the Kashi Vishwanath temple, to ascertain whether the mosque was built over an already-existing Hindu temple structure.
According to Yadav, the ASI filed its survey report with Justice Prashant Singh’s Fast Track Court. The case was then brought before the district judge court, which issued an order requiring the parties to receive hard copies of the report.
The Muslim side argued in district court on Wednesday that the parties should have access to the survey results rather than them being made public.
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Regarding this, the court ordered that the parties provide an affidavit promising to keep the report confidential and with them only.
The court ordered the survey in response to the Hindu petitioners’ contention that a pre-existing temple was covered by the mosque built in the 17th century.
On December 18, the ASI delivered its survey report in a sealed cover to the district court.
Citing the Allahabad High Court’s December 19 ruling, the ASI had urged the court on January 3 to postpone making its Gyanvapi complex survey report public for at least four more weeks.
Amit Shrivastava, the ASI counsel, informed the district court that the high court had stated in its ruling that the Civil Judge Senior Division Fast Track Court has the authority to reorder a survey of the Gyanvapi complex if needed.
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Thus, if the survey report is made available to the public at this time, a contradiction could occur. Consequently, the counsel had stated that the survey report should be opened and made available to the parties within four weeks.
On December 19, the high court rejected several Muslim-led arguments contesting the maintainability of a lawsuit aiming to restore a temple in Varanasi that was once the site of the Gyanvapi mosque.
