The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal contesting the High Court’s decision to remove the mosque from the Allahabad High Court grounds and ordered that the mosque be removed immediately. The Sunni Waqf Board has been granted three months by the Supreme Court to dismantle the mosque.
In this case, the petitioner Sunni Waqf Board has been granted the right to present its case to the State Government.
The Allahabad High Court’s 2017 ruling asking the mosque be removed from the High Court grounds was being contested by the Sunni Waqf Board. The Supreme Court dismissed the case and gave the Waqf Board three months to dismantle the mosque after a panel of Justices CT Ravi Kumar and MR Shah decided not to challenge the High Court’s decision. The property on which the mosque is located is not held by the Waqf Board, according to the Supreme Court’s ruling, but rather by the Allahabad High Court.
At an earlier argument, Sunni Waqf Board advocate Kapil Sibal said that only the Mosque is not obstructing the path for Damkal vehicles. In the grounds of the High Court, there are other buildings that face Damkal Road. Sibal questioned the motivation of the petitioner in the case, adding that in this case, a person named Abhishek Shukla had submitted the plea after the establishment of the Yogi administration, which begs the issue. Sibal also requested that the court provide the Sunni Waqf Board alternate land.
The Waqf Board, represented by another experienced lawyer named Indira Jai Singh, sought to be given alternate property for the mosque. The lawyer representing the UP government in the case, Aishwarya Bhatti, disagreed and said that there is another mosque just near to the High Court. She said that the Waqf Board is correct in claiming that they do not possess ownership of the mosque.
It should be remembered that the Allahabad High Court said in its ruling from earlier in 2017 that 12 justices in the High Court do not even have rooms in which to sit because of the rise in the number of judges.
According to the High Court judge, there are currently six other judges sharing his office space. The court also stated that even the cars from Damkal are unable to enter the High Court’s grounds because of the mosque’s presence there.
