Uttar Pradesh: Court to pronounce verdict on making public ASI survey report in Gyanvapi case today

The District Court of Varanasi is likely to give a ruling on making the ASI survey report of the Gyanvapi mosque public, a day after the ASI filed an application with the court seeking deferment of making the report public. In its application, the ASI has said that it has been asked by the Allahabad High Court to file a similar report for which it needs some time.

Varanasi: A local court in Uttar Pradesh's Varanasi is likely to pronounce a ruling over making public the report of the survey of the Gyanvapi mosque conducted by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) on Friday, sources said. The ruling comes a day after the ASI pleaded with the court not to make the survey report public for the next four weeks. The ASI had filed the survey report of the Gyanvapi mosque with the district court Varanasi on Dec 18 after which the court had fixed Wednesday Jan 3 as the date for pronouncing its verdict on making the report public.

However, the ASI filed an application with the District Court Varanasi seeking deferment of the verdict over the matter by four weeks. In its plea with the court, the ASI said that it had been asked by the Allahabad High Court also to submit a similar survey report in another petition pending with the court. It said that the submission of the report with the Allahabad High Court would take time and the report it has submitted with the Varanasi District Court should be withheld for now.

Meanwhile, the Muslim side is demanding that the findings during the survey should remain between the plaintiffs and defendants, while the Hindu side is demanding that it be made public. The court was scheduled to give its verdict on this matter on Thursday itself but the hearing could not be held yesterday. On behalf of the Archaeological Survey of India, his lawyer Amit Srivastava has given an application and appealed to the court not to make the report public for 4 weeks.

The court is likely to pronounce its verdict today. On Thursday, the court of Senior Civil Division termed the filing of a sealed report by ASI on the case as wrong and termed it as a violation of the order of the Supreme Court.