A civil court in Mathura refused to admit a suit seeking the removal of the Idgah mosque in Mathura on the allegation that it was built over the birthplace of Krishna, the Hindu deity, LiveLaw reported.
Ranjana Agnihotri, one of the advocates who argued in the Ayodhya Title Suit before the Lucknow High Court, had filed the suit seeking to claim ownership over the land on which the Shahi Idgah Masjid is built, and the removal of the mosque.
Agnihotri and six others had filed the suit on behalf of ‘Shri Krishna Virajman’, the Hindu deity. The lawyers had argued that ‘Shri Krishna’ can be the plaintiff as justified by ‘Hindu Law’.
The suit challenged the 1968 agreement between the Shri Krishna Janmabhoomi Trust and the Idgah committee in which the ownership of the land was granted to the trust, and the management rights of the Masjid left with the Idgah committee, hence depriving the Trust of the legal right to stake a claim on the Masjid. This agreement was also challenged by Manohar Lal Sharma in 1993, as the Idgah mosque came under the radar after the demolition of the Babri Masjid.
The Court of Civil Judge (Senior Division) cited the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991 to dismiss the suit. The Act had been enacted in the aftermath of the illegal demolition of the Babri Masjid, when the VHP and RSS organizations were beginning to launch similar campaigns against the Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi and the Shahi Idgah mosque in Mathura.
The act froze the status of any place of worship as it existed on August 15, 1947. As per Section 4 of the Act, Courts are barred from entertaining pleas seeking the conversion of the character of religious places as it stood on the day of Independence.
The approval of the judiciary for the disgraceful acts of VHP karsevaks in the demolition of the Babri Masjid, with the Supreme Court verdict allowing the building of the Ram Temple, and now the CBI Special Court verdict acquitting all those RSS leaders responsible for inciting the violence, has created a feeling of impunity amongst Hindu fundamentalists.
In spite of a prior attempt to remove the Idgah mosque having failed and the existence of a law that does not allow its removal, Hindutva activists have continued to push for it. Now that the fervour of the Ram Janmabhoomi has passed, the push for Krishna Janmabhoomi is worrisome. The RSS is not known for its respect for the law, and perhaps this suit signals the beginning of another propaganda campaign to instigate Hindus against Muslims and distract the people of the country from noticing the government’s failures.
