Gyanvapi mosque case: ASI seeks 8 weeks to complete scientific survey

livemint.com:

Gyanvapi Mosque. The ADJ Varanasi is slated to hear the matter on 8 September. This comes on a day when the timeline of four weeks granted to ASI to complete its survey in the Gyanvapi complex ending on 2 September.

The time granted by a Varanasi Court was granted to ASI to determine if the mosque was constructed on a pre-existing temple. The Hindu side lawyers told news agency ANI that ASI would seek for additional time to complete the survey in Gyanvapi Mosque from the court and may submit a preliminary report. Sudhir Tripathi, an advocate representing the Hindu side, said they think “the survey is not completed yet".

“ASI may give a primary report but they should not submit the final report yet as the survey is incomplete. After lunch, the court will hear the matter. There is a possibility that ASI may ask for more time from the court," Tripathi told ANI.

Shubhash Nandan Chaturvedi, also a lawyer representing Hindu litigants, said the four weeks given by the Varanasi district court to ASI to complete its survey end on Saturday. “We think that the survey is not completed yet and ASI may make a request to extend the date," he said. The scientific survey of the complex, adjacent to Kashi Vishwanath Temple, excluding ‘wuzukhana’, began on August 4, following the Allahabad High Court's order, which allowed the ASI to conduct the survey to determine if the 17th-century mosque was constructed over a pre-existing structure of a Hindu temple Earlier, Advocate Vishnu Shankar Jain, also a lawyer for the Hindu side, said an out-of-court settlement in the Gyanvapi Mosque issue “is not legally possible".