Krishna Janmabhoomi land dispute: Court allows plea seeking removal of Shahi Idgah Mosque

The Mathura district court on Thursday said a plea seeking to remove the Shahi Idgah Masjid from the complex it shares with the Katra Keshav Dev Temple here is admissible.

A lower court that had earlier dismissed the plea is now bound to hear it.

An application was also moved in a court here on Thursday for sending an Archeological Survey of India (ASI) team to the Shahi Idgah Masjid to report on the presence of "signs of a Hindu temple" there.

The plea to remove the Shahi Idgah Masjid was originally filed in a lower court -- the court of civil judge senior division -- on September 25, 2020, by Lucknow-resident Ranjana Agnihotri and six others as the "next friend of Bhagwan Sri Krishna Virajman".

They had claimed in the plea that the Shahi Idgah Masjid is constructed on a part of 13.37 acre land belonging to the Sri Krishna Janmabhoomi Trust. They had demanded the mosque be removed and the land returned to the Trust.

However, the civil judge senior division had rejected the suit on September 30, 2020, as non-admissible.

The petitioners then moved the court of the district judge, seeking a revision of the order.

After hearing the arguments, District and Sessions Judge Rajeev Bharti allowed the revision on Thursday, meaning the original suit will have to be heard by the lower court now, an official of the court said.

"The court has allowed revision of the lower court order and had directed the lower court to register the suit as a regular suit," District Government Counsel (Civil) Sanjai Gaur said.

Advocate Hari Shankar Jain, who is representing the petitioners of the suit, said, "The court has said they (the petitioners) have the right to sue."

After the revision was filed in the district court, the arguments between both the sides -- Ranjana Agnihotri and her co-petitioners vs the Sunni Central Waqf Board and the Secretary of Shahi Idgah Masjid and two others -- on the admissibility of the suit were concluded on May 5, the DGC said.

The court had reserved May 19 for the pronouncement of the judgment on the admissibility of the first suit.

The application in the local court seeking an Archeological Survey of India (ASI) report on the presence of "signs of a Hindu temple" at the Shahi Idgah Masjid was moved by petitioner Manish Yadav.

Yadav filed two separate applications in the court of the civil judge senior division.

"In one application, the court has been requested to seek a report from a team of the ASI on the presence of signs of a Hindu temple in the mosque," Deepak Sharma, counsel for the petitioner, said.

In the second application, the court has been requested to issue directions for the installation of CCTV cameras inside the Shahi Idgah mosque of Mathura to ensure that the "signs of the temple" present there are protected, Sharma said.

The court has also been requested to pass an order to ban entry into the mosque for people other than those residing on the Idgah premises and to direct the home department principal secretary to monitor the mosque and ensure that the temple signs are protected for legal witness, the petitioner's counsel added.

The counsel said the petitioner has expressed apprehensions that the signs of the temple inside the mosque could be defaced, removed or damaged.

The Shahi Idgah mosque is located in the same complex as the Katra Keshav Dev Temple.