The Supreme Court on Monday prolonged its hold on the Allahabad High Court’s edict from December 14, 2023, which had mandated a survey of the Shahi Idgah mosque adjacent to the Krishna Janmabhoomi temple in Mathura, Uttar Pradesh.
A panel of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta allocated a subsequent hearing for August 2024, confirming the preservation of the interim stay on the High Court’s directive until the next hearing.
Senior counsel Shyam Divan advocated for the Hindu groups at the highest court, while advocate Tasneem Ahmadi represented the Muslim parties.
The apex court revealed that the application for Order 7 Rule 11 will be addressed before the high court on the following day. After a succinct session, the supreme court postponed the matter to the initial week of August, instructing the parties to finalize their arguments by then.
The top court specified that the provisional stay order would remain in place and clarified that it had not halted the legal actions before the high court.
On January 16, 2024, the highest court had suspended the High Court’s ruling, while asserting that other legal proceedings at the High Court would advance as planned.
In a prior session, Divan passionately opposed a full suspension of the ruling, emphasizing before the top court that the high court should at least resolve the methods of the survey. Nonetheless, the bench stated that the commission will not be carried out at the moment.
The top court advised Divan, “Your request for the commissioner was not precise. It needed to be explicit… You must be clear about the purpose you need him for, but you leave it to the court.”
The bench, while suspending the Allahabad High Court’s decision from December 14 concerning the appointment of an advocate-commissioner to supervise the mosque’s survey, remarked that the Hindu claimants did not clarify the justification for the petition.
“You cannot simply demand the appointment of a commissioner based on the plaint’s requests. You need to articulate precisely what you’re seeking…,” the bench stated.
The supreme court was deliberating a petition from the Muslim side challenging the high court’s approval of the survey.
