The Allahabad High Court has overruled a Varanasi court’s judgement to deny a carbon dating request for a structure within the Gyanvapi Masjid complex. The high court has ordered a scientific assessment to determine the antiquity of the building, which Hindus believe is a shivling and Muslims believe is a fountain. The high court has asked the Varanasi district judge to proceed with the appeal for a scientific assessment of the structure filed by Hindu devotees.
The Varanasi court refused the claim for carbon dating in October 2022, causing Laxmi Devi and three others to submit a revision case, which Justice Arvind Kumar Mishra has recently granted. The revisionists’ attorney, Vishnu Shankar Jain, argued that the district judge’s order lacked foundation and that the district judge should have obtained an expert opinion from the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) on the possibility of carbon dating the shivling without causing damage.
The state government, represented by assistant attorney general MC Chaturvedi and chief standing attorney Bipin Bihari Pandey, claimed that they had no issue with carbon dating if it could be done without causing damage to the edifice and would aid in determining its real origin and nature.
Senior advocate SFA Naqvi, representing the Anjuman Intezamia Masjid Committee (AIMC) in charge of the Gyanvapi mosque, opposed the revision petition, citing a Supreme Court order dated May 20, 2022, which instructed the district judge to only address the masjid committee’s application regarding the suit’s maintainability.
The Gyanvapi issue has been raging for decades, but it resurfaced in August 2021 when five women filed a petition requesting the right to worship freely at the Maa Shringar Gauri Sthal within the compound, which houses Hindu god images. A local court ordered a controversial examination of the premises in April 2022, sparking protests. The examination was eventually finished in May, with the Hindu side claiming that a shivling was discovered in the final hours. The entire complex was subjected to safety precautions, while the Muslim side claimed that the structure that was discovered was a ceremonial cleansing fountain.
The lawsuit eventually reached the Supreme Court, which on May 20, 2022, shifted the matter from the Varanasi civil judge to the district judge and safeguarded the site. The district court ruled in September that the Hindu women’s petitions were maintainable. Four of the five ladies made a request for carbon dating or scientific examination of the structure, the complex walls, and the Maa Shringar Gauri Sthal in September 2022. This was challenged not only by the mosque committee but also by one of the Hindu petitioners, Rakhi Singh, who saw carbon dating as a publicity ploy and sacrilegious.
The court denied the plea on October 14, citing Supreme Court orders to keep the premises shut. The AIMC said that carbon dating was ineffective since stone is not a biological material. They further claimed that because the structure was not part of the suit’s property, carbon dating or scientific inquiry to ascertain its age was “insignificant.” Following that, the Hindu side moved to the high court, which resulted in the most recent development in the case.
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