From Our Bureau
NEW DELHI: An additional district court of Delhi on Tuesday reserved for June 9 its order on a plea to restore 27 Hindu and Jain temples inside the Qutub Minar complex even as the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) protecting the monument asserted that it is not a place of worship and any change in the existing structure is not permissible.
Judge Nikhil Chopra allowed the parties to file brief synopsis, if any, within a week after the arguments were concluded on Tuesday. Hari Shankar Jain, one of the appellants, had approached the Saket district court after a civil court had rejected his plea on the ground that the suit was barred under the Places of Worship Act, 1991.
The civil judge had also observed that the wrongs of the past cannot be a basis for disturbing the present peace and if it is allowed, the fabric of the Constitution, secular character will be damaged.
Existence of the idols on the premises is not in dispute, the ADJ said while wondering the appellants’ legal right to file the suit.
“Now you want this monument to be turned into a temple calling it restoration, my question is how would you claim that the plaintiffs have a legal right assuming it existed about 800 years back? On a lighter note, Deity is survived for last 800 years without worship. Let him survive like that,” Judge Chopra observed.
He was reacting to Hari Shankar Jain’s plea to restore the deities and allow pooja at the complex. “It is an admitted position that for the last 800 years, it wasn’t ued by the Muslims. When there is a temple plea which was in existence much before the mosque, why can’t it be restored,” Jain submitted.
He referred to the Supreme Court’s decision in the Ayodhya temple case to contend that once a deity, is always a deity and a temple, merely on being demolished, shall not lose its character, sanctity or dignity.
His claim is that the Quwwat-ul-Islam Masjid situated within the Qutub Minar complex as built in place of a temple complex comprising as many as 27 temples.
