UP court admits plea seeking removal of mosque near Katra Keshav Dev temple in Mathura

Mathura: A Mathura court on Friday admitted an appeal against an order that dismissed a plea seeking removal of a 17th-century mosque built near the Lord Krishna temple in the city. Last month, a group of people filed a suit in the court of the senior division civil judge in Mathura, claiming the mosque was built at Lord Krishna’s birthplace, within the 13.37-acre complex of the Katra Keshav Dev temple. When the senior division civil judge dismissed their plea on 30 September, they appealed in the district court on 12 October terming the order “erroneous and against facts”. After summoning the record of the lower court, the district court admitted the appeal on Friday. “Admit appeal. Issue notice to opposite parties to appear in the court on 18 November,” District and Sessions Judge Sadhana Thakur said. “Ultimately the district judge has accepted our point. We have been fighting for justice for the last one month,” counsel for the petitioners Vishnu Shankar Jain told reporters. “We were confident about the admissibility of the appeal,” he added. The plea stated that if the property of the deity has been misused, the worshipper has got every right to sue offenders. It was also submitted to the court that the five-judge bench in the Ayodhya case has ruled that a worshipper has a right to protect the property of the deity, Jain said. The suit was filed on behalf of the child deity Bhagwan Shri Krishna Virajman, through the “next friend” Ranjana Agnihotri and others. ‘Next friend’ is a legal term for a person who represents someone directly unable to maintain a suit. The petition named Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board, Shahi Masjid Idgah Trust, Shri Krishna Janambhoomi Trust, and Shri Krishna Janmasthan Seva Sansthan as defendants. The plaintiffs sought an order directing the mosque management to “remove the construction raised by them encroaching upon the land within the area of the Katra Ksehav Dev temple”.