Supreme Court urged to intervene in mosques-dargah survey orders by lower courts

To bring a halt to a surfeit of petitions pleading for surveys of medieval places of worship, the All India Muslim Personal Law Board has appealed to the Supreme Court to take suo motu notice and bar the District and Sessions courts from entertaining such petitions.

The appeal comes in the wake of Ajmer’s West Civil Court’s acceptance to hear a petition claiming that the historic Ajmer dargah was originally a Sankat Mochan Mahadev temple. “The Chief Justice of India should take suo motu action and direct the lower courts to refrain from opening doors to further disputes,” the Board’s spokesperson S.Q.R. Ilyas said in a statement.

Expressing “deep concern and anguish” over the recent surge in claims on mosques and dargahs, Mr. Ilyas said “Such claims make a mockery of the law.”