According to Varanasi Divisional Commissioner Kaushal Raj Sharma, regular full-fledged puja of the deities inside the cellar would commence in compliance with the district court order from Thursday onwards.
The district court judge Dr AK Vishvesha had passed the order on his last working day while disposing a plea filed by Shailendra Kumar Pathak Vyas, the head priest of Acharya Ved Vyas Peeth temple, seeking the right to worship Goddess Shringar Gauri, other visible and invisible deities inside the cellar of Gyanvapi mosque as it was being done till 1993. The plea had been filed by Pathak on September 25, 2023.
The order by Judge A K Vishvesha came a day after an Archeological Survey of India (ASI) report on the mosque complex was made public.
The ASI survey, ordered by the same court, in connection with a related case, suggested that the mosque was constructed during Aurangzeb’s rule over the remains of a Hindu temple.
Wednesday’s order was delivered on the plea of Shailendra Kumar Pathak who claimed that his maternal grandfather, priest Somnath Vyas, offered prayers till December 1993, according to Hindu side counsel Madan Mohan Yadav.
Pathak said the puja was stopped during the tenure of former chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav after the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya was demolished on December 6, 1992.