Sambhal mosque committee moves SC against survey; hearing on November 29

New Delhi [India], November 28 (ANI): The Committee of Management of Jama Masjid in Sambhal, Uttar Pradesh, moved the Supreme Court against the November 19 order of the local court for the survey of the mosque.
Chief Justice of India Justice Sanjiv Khanna-led bench to hear the petition of Sambhal Jama Masjid tomorrow.
The Committee, in its plea, contended that the report of the survey commissioner be kept in a sealed cover and the status quo be maintained until finality of the present petition.
"Surveys should not be ordered and executed as a matter of course in cases involving disputes over places of worship without hearing all parties and allowing sufficient time to the aggrieved persons to seek judicial remedies against the order of survey," it stated.
On November 19, the civil judge, senior division, directed the court commissioner to do a survey of the mosque and file the report in the court.
The Masjid Committee moved the apex court directly, citing an "extraordinary situation.".
The petition has been filed under Section 136 of the Constitution, in which the Supreme Court has the powers to directly adjudicate any matter.
"It is under these extraordinary circumstances that the Petitioner/Managing Committee is beseeching this court to kindly intervene and stay the proceedings of civil suit pending before the civil judge (senior division), Sambhal at Chandausi. The hot haste in which the survey was allowed and conducted all within a day and suddenly another survey was conducted with a notice of barely six hours has given rise to widespread communal tensions and threatens the secular and democratic fabric of the nation," the petition stated.
It further added, "Since the rampant ordering of surveys where belated claims on mosques are made is emerging as a pattern, it has become necessary for this court, in the interest of the constitutional goal of fraternity and in order to do complete justice, to pass directions that surveys should not be ordered and executed as a matter of routine in cases involving different communities over places of worship without hearing the defendants and without allowing sufficient time to the aggrieved persons to seek judicial remedies against the order of survey."
The manner in which the survey was ordered in this case and has been ordered in some other cases will have an immediate impact in a number of cases across the country that have been filed recently concerning places of worship where such orders will have a tendency to inflame communal passions, cause law and order problems, and damage the secular fabric of the country, it said.
Tensions in Sambhal had been simmering since the local court ordered a survey of the mosque on November 19. Opposing the court-ordered survey of the Jama Masjid people clashed with police, resulting in the deaths of four persons.
The survey followed a petition filed by some persons in the local court, claiming that the site of the mosque was previously a Harihar temple. (ANI)