Ashish Ranjan
Removal of mosque from HC premises: Monday, the Supreme Court rejected appeals against a 2017 Allahabad High Court order on removal of mosque from its premises.A bench composed of Justices MR Shah and CT Ravikumar denied special leave petitions filed by the Waqf Masjid High Court and the UP Sunni Central Waqf Board and granted the petitioners three months to remove the mosque from the Allahabad HC premises.
While permitting the petitioners to make a request to the government of Uttar Pradesh for alternative land, the apex court added that if the petitioners miss the three-month deadline, the mosque could be demolished.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing the mosque’s management committee, stated that the mosque has been in its current location since the 1950s and therefore cannot be requested to move. “In 2017, the government transformed and everything changed. A PIL is lodged 10 days after the formation of the new government. “We have no objections to moving to a different location as long as they provide it,” he said.
For the high court, senior counsel Rakesh Dwivedi stated that this was a case of utter fraud.”Twice, renewal applications were submitted, but there was no indication that the mosque had been built and used by the public.” They requested a renewal, citing a need for residential purposes. Even though they are performing the namaz, it is not a mosque. If namaz is permitted for convenience on the Supreme Court or High Court verandah, it will not become a mosque, he said.
The court noted that the mosque was located on leased government land and that the grant had been revoked in 2002, as reported .
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In 2004, the land was returned to the High Court, a decision that was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2012.
