VARANASI: District judge Ajaya Krishna Vishvesha on Wednesday allowed regular worship of Shringar Gauri and other Hindu deities in the southern cellar of Varanasi’s Gyanvapi Masjid by a family of priests that used to perform rituals there prior to 1993.
The judge directed the district magistrate to make proper arrangements, including erecting an iron fence, within seven days so that the plaintiff – head priest Shailendra Kumar Pathak Vyas of Acharya Ved Vyas Peeth temple – and a priest assigned by Shri Kashi Vishwanath Temple Trust can resume daily worship.
Anjuman Intizamia Masajid (AIM), custodian of Gyanvapi, said it would challenge the order in Allahabad high court.
The case is distinct from the Shringar Gauri litigation initiated by five Hindu women, seeking the right to unhindered daily worship of the deity and other idols within the Gyanvapi compound.

Shailendra Vyas’s plea states that his maternal grandfather, Somnath Vyas, would worship Shringar Gauri and other Hindu deities in the southern cellar until Dec 1993, when the then state administration barred entry into what purportedly used to be known as “Vyasji ka tehkhana”.
The petition was admitted on September 25 last year, over two years after the main Shringar Gauri case was filed in the Varanasi civil judge’s court. District judge Vishvesha took over the Shringar Gauri case on the orders of Supreme Court and subsequently clubbed several civil suits linked to Gyanvapi.
Shailendra Vyas’s counsel Vishnu Shankar Jain said the plaintiff’s family had been visiting the southern cellar to worship the deities there “for centuries”.
“In December 1993, the then Mulayam Singh Yadav government erected a steel fence without any judicial order, thus stopping the puja,” he said.
Besides seeking access to the closed southern cellar of Gyanvapi, his client had petitioned the court to appoint the DM or any other appropriate authority as the “receiver” of that portion of the mosque.
In a Jan 17 order, the district court appointed the DM as the receiver. The latter took custody of the southern cellar on Jan 23.
Before the Shringar Gauri and seven other Gyanvapi-linked cases were transferred to district judge Vishvesha in 2022, the civil judge had ordered a court-monitored survey of the compound. The Hindu side claimed that a “Shivling” was found in the ablution pond of the mosque during the survey, which AIM challenged.
SC ordered the sealing of the pond area and transferred the case to the district judge on May 20, 2022.
On July 21 last year, district judge Vishvesha thereafter ordered Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) to conduct a scientific survey of the Gyanvapi compound.
ASI’s report, which was handed over to both sides last Thursday, purportedly states that a Hindu temple existed at the site of the mosque.
Watch Hindus win in Gyanvapi Mosque Row: Hindus to begin worship in “Vyas Ji Ka Tehkhana” after 31 years