The Allahabad High Court, while not interfering with the petition of Shahi Masjid Idgah Trust, Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board, directed the Mathura Civil Court to decide the pending suit. The HC said the Civil Court Mathura committed a mistake by not registering the case filed in Civil Katra Keshav Dev’s 13.37 acres of land, which is Krishna Janmabhoomi, in the name of Lord Shri Krishna Virajman, removal of illegal construction and cancellation of the agreement made on July 20, 1973.
The Allahabad HC’s order paves the way for the hearing to begin with in the land dispute case.
The High Court remitted the entire matter back to the Mathura Civil Court. Srikrishna Virajman had petitioned the District Judge for a review of the Civil Court’s decision to dismiss the civil complaint.
In 2020, the Mathura civil court rejected the Hindu petitioners’ “right to sue”, but the High Court deemed this to be a “legal error” by the judge who treated the case as a miscellaneous matter and focused on its maintainability instead of registering it as a civil suit. On May 19, 2022, the Mathura district court reversed the civil court’s decision, stating that the suit was indeed “maintainable”.
The UP Sunni Central Waqf Board and the trust of Shahi Eidgah contested the decision by approaching the high court. The HC upheld the district court’s ruling and lifted the stay it had imposed in August on the district judge’s verdict, which instructed the lower court to hear the case. While returning the matter to the civil court, the HC instructed it to make its decision “without being swayed” by any observations or findings made in the district judge’s May 19 order.
Earlier, the court had stayed the order for an official survey of the disputed Shahi Idgah structure. In response to a plea filed by Hindu Sena president Vishnu Gupta, the Senior Division Court ordered the official survey. The stay on the survey was issued after Advocates Tanveer Ahmed and Neeraj Sharma, appearing for the Shahi Idgah, filed a petition against the plea filed by the Hindu Sena President.
On December 8, Hindu Sena national president Vishnu Gupta and vice-president Surjit Singh Yadav had said in the court of Civil Judge Senior Division (III) Judge Sonika Verma that the Idgah was built by Aurangzeb on 13.37 acres of land at Sri Krishna Janmasthan. They presented the entire history from Lord Krishna’s birth to the construction of the temple before the court. Shailesh Dubey appeared as an advocate for the claimants in the court.
They also demanded that the agreement signed between Shri Krishna Janmasthan Seva Sangh vs Shahi Idgah in 1968 be canceled as illegal. Initially, based on an agreement between the mosque trust and temple administration, a civil court allocated land to both parties in 1973. However, a new petition to contest the 1973 decision was submitted on behalf of the deity in 2016.
The Civil Court (Senior Division) declined to register the matter as a civil complaint on September 25, 2020, on the grounds that some of the claimants from the Hindu side did not reside in Mathura, the area where the disputed property is located. The civil court subsequently rejected the case, on the grounds that the respondents were worshipers and devotees, and that if the lawsuit had been permitted to proceed, the social and judicial systems would have collapsed since they lacked the legal right to sue.
But in May of last year, the Mathura district judge overturned the civil judge’s directive and declared that the case could be heard. In deciding the revision petition, the Court brought up a number of issues based on arguments made by the petitioners, such as whether the plea may be maintained against the contested order in 2020 and if a worshipper can bring a lawsuit as the next friend of the deity.
On the basis of fraudulent misrepresentation and collusion, the judge also considered whether the plaintiffs had the right to continue their lawsuit challenging the compromise judgments and decrees entered in a civil suit, as well as whether the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act 1991 would be applicable.
The judge made thorough findings on each issue and threw out the ruling from September 30, 2020, declaring that the trial court had made unlawful and apparent mistakes. In light of the points made in the revision petition, the trial court was instructed to hear arguments from both parties and provide a suitable ruling.
The Muslim side then filed a petition with the HC to challenge this ruling, claiming that it was against the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act of 1991. The Civil Judge (Senior Division) had not issued summons to the defendants, therefore the problem of the suit’s registration was one between the court and the plaintiffs, the court stated at the time of dismissal.
According to the HC, the court cannot rule on any issue in a petition brought under Article 227 since doing so might harm both parties’ rights and claims. The lawsuit has already been filed as a civil lawsuit, and the trial court has already issued summons for submitting the appropriate written declarations and framing of problems.
