Gyanvapi panel opposes pleas against Places of Worship Act

The Gyanvapi Mosque management committee has moved the Supreme Court to oppose petitions challenging the validity of the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991. The Act prohibits conversion of any place of worship, except the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid at Ayodhya and freezes the religious character of a place of worship as it existed on August 15, 1947.

There are six petitions, including those filed by advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay and former MP Subramanian Swamy, against certain provisions of the law. The petitioners alleged that the 1991 law created an “arbitrary and irrational retrospective cut-off date” of August 15, 1947, for maintaining the character of the places of worship against encroachment done by “fundamentalist-barbaric invaders and law-breakers”.

The top court had on January 9, 2023, sought responses of the Centre on pending pleas challenging certain provisions of the 1991 Act, which took away the right of judicial remedy to reclaim a place of worship of any person or a religious group.

In an intervention application filed in the SC, the management committee, Anjuman Intezamia Masajid, Varanasi, has sought dismissal of all these petitions on the ground that they could disrupt communal harmony and the rule of law.