SC to hear Sambhal mosque survey plea on Friday

The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on Friday a petition challenging the November 19 order of a district court, which directed that a survey be undertaken of a Mughal-era mosque in Uttar Pradesh's Sambhal.

According to the cause list of November 29 uploaded on the apex court website, a bench headed by Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna is scheduled to hear the plea filed by the Committee of Management, Shahi Jama Masjid, Sambhal.

The plea has sought an ex-parte stay on the operation of the November 19 order passed by the civil judge.

"The hot haste in which the survey was allowed and conducted all within a day and suddenly another survey was conducted with a notice of barely six hours has given rise to widespread communal tensions and threatens the secular and democratic fabric of the nation," it said.

Tension has been brewing in Sambhal since November 19 when the court-ordered survey of the Shahi Jama Masjid was carried out following claims that a Harihar temple previously stood at the site.

Violence erupted on November 24 as protesters gathered near the mosque and clashed with security personnel, leading to stone pelting and arson. Four people died and scores of others were injured in the violence.

The plea filed in the apex court claimed the manner in which the survey was ordered in this case and in some other matters will have an immediate impact in the number of cases recently filed across the country concerning places of worship where such orders will have a "tendency to inflame communal passions, cause law and order problems and damage the secular fabric of the country".

It has sought a direction that the report of the survey commissioner be kept in a sealed cover and the status quo be maintained in the Sambhal mosque until the matter is decided.

The plea has also sought the apex court's direction to the effect that surveys should not be ordered and executed as a matter of course in cases involving disputes over places of worship without hearing all parties and allowing sufficient time to the aggrieved persons to seek judicial remedies against the order of survey.

It said the Shahi Jama Masjid at Chandausi in Sambhal has been standing since 16th century and has been in continuous use by the Muslims as a place of worship.

"While there had been no dispute so far with regard to the aforesaid Jama Masjid, a suit was filed on November 19, 2024, by eight plaintiffs terming the Jama Masjid 'Shri Hari Har Temple' and seeking, inter alia, directions that the plaintiffs have a right to access qua the Jama Masjid and further seeking injunction against the defendants from creating any hurdle in the access of the mosque which the plaintiffs term as a temple," it said.

The plea said that on November 19, the civil judge heard the suit ex-parte and allowed the application seeking the appointment of an advocate commissioner for a survey of the mosque within hours.

"The order dated November 19, 2024, also contained no reasons at all as to why such an application was being considered ex-parte and why was it being allowed the same day," the plea stated.

"Evidently, the above-said order directs a survey 'as per the application' and has given neither any reasons nor any terms of reference for the survey".

The plea claimed that within a span of two hours of the order, the advocate commissioner, along with a police force and others, arrived at the mosque to conduct a survey. The survey started at 6 pm and continued till 8.30 pm, it said.

"While the petitioners were preparing for their legal remedies against the ex-parte order and the survey on November 19, just before the midnight of November 23/24, 2024, the circle officer came to inform the president of the petitioner committee that suddenly another survey will be conducted the next morning i.e. November 24, 2024," the plea claimed.

It said that before the petitioner had the chance to fully comprehend and avail any remedies against the second survey, by 6.15 am on November 24, the survey commissioner arrived with heavy police presence and advocates of the plaintiffs and commenced the survey.

"The hot haste in which the matter proceeded and a subsequent survey was suddenly conducted, gave rise to apprehensions in the mind of the residents of the area, which brought them outside their house. As per reports, the police opened fire at the protesting citizens and six innocent lives have been lost as a result of firing with many injured," it claimed.

Referring to the "extraordinary circumstances", the petitioner has urged the apex court to intervene and stay the proceedings of the civil suit pending before the civil judge.

The plea claimed that rampant ordering of surveys, where belated claims on mosques are made, was emerging as a pattern.