The Allahabad high court will deliver its verdict on August 3 on a petition brought by the Anjuman Intezamia Masajid (AIM) that contested the Varanasi district court's July 21, 2023, order ordering the ASI to survey the Gyanvapi complex.
Chief Justice Pritinker Diwaker reserved judgment after hearing counsels for both parties. The court said the Supreme Court stay order on an ASI survey will remain in force till the judgment is delivered.
There would be no excavation at the Gyanvapi site, additional director of the Archaeological Survey of India Alok Tripathi said to the court as the session got underway. Advocate General Ajai Kumar Misra spoke on behalf of the UP government and asserted that the state's role was to uphold peace and order and had nothing to do with the survey.
Advocate Vishnu Shankar Jain, the counsel for the four women on whose petition the district judge ordered the ASI survey, submitted that an ASI survey was necessary to bring the issue to a logical conclusion. He also showed photographs of the western side of the mosque which, he claimed, show the existence of shrines of Hindu worship and other Hindu symbols.
Earlier, AIM lawyer SFA Naqvi said, “The court cannot be used to collect evidence by sending a commission to do it when the applicant had no evidence in support of his case.” Jain replied: "The existence and non-existence of the deities is a matter of evidence. To secure evidence, which is there, and parties are not in a position to produce (it) themselves, a court can order a commission to collect such evidence and the commission will collect it in this regard.”
He added, “The district court had ordered the ASI survey to come to a logical conclusion regarding the existence of deities and nature and age of the structure.” Senior advocate Naqvi replied: “We have attached photographs of various digging equipment, which ASI was carrying when it reached the mosque premises. It shows that they had intentions of digging (at) the spot.”