The Delhi high court on Friday declined an urgent listing of a plea against a purported bar on offering namaz at a mosque located at the entrance of New Delhi’s Qutub Minar Complex, a protected monument.
A lawyer urgently mentioned the matter before a bench of acting chief justice Vipin Sanghi and justice Sachin Datta, saying it is a functioning mosque and under the Waqf Board, which manages Muslim shrines. She said namaz was regularly offered at the mosque before it was suddenly stopped on May 15. The lawyer added devotees are being prevented from praying there despite no formal order or direction.
The court declined to list it immediately. “File it, we are not going to list it today [Friday]. No way…For vacations, you mention before the concerned registrar.”
An official told HT last week that no recent order was issued barring the prayers even as the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) has in the past asked them to be stopped as per the rules. The last such direction was sent some months ago.
Qutub Minar is not a place of worship nor can it be revived as one under the laws of the land, the ASI on May 24 told a Delhi court, which reserved its order for June 9 on pleas seeking to restore the right to worship for Hindus and Jains at the Quwwat-Ul-Islam mosque on the monument’s premises.
ASI said no community has worshipped at Qutub Minar or anywhere inside the complex since 1914 when it was declared a protected monument. Qutab Minar comes under the protection of the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1958