SC halts registration of fresh place of worship suits

The Story in Brief

Livelaw reports that a Supreme Court bench led by Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna has ordered that no fresh suits challenging the religious character of places of worship shall be registered and no proceedings in pending suits shall be undertaken until the next order. The Court also barred lower courts from passing any effective interim or final orders including surveys. The interim order comes amid a flood of litigation seeking to examine the religious character of mosques and dargahs despite the Places of Worship Act, 1991, which prohibits courts from altering the religious character of any place of worship as it existed on August 15, 1947.

The Act's constitutional validity is being challenged in the Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay case. Lower courts in Varanasi, Sambhal, Jaunpur, Lucknow, Ajmer, Mangaluru, and Delhi have recently admitted suits to evaluate monuments such as the Gyanvapi Masjid, Shahi Jama Masjid, Atala Mosque, Ajmer Dargah, and Quwwat-ul-Islam Mosque, arguing that the Act does not bar inquiry into religious character.