Indian top court halts cases targeting worship places amid mosque petitions

The Indian Supreme Court has barred trial courts from registering any new suits against places of worship until they get further orders from the top court.

Thursday's directive came as the top court was hearing petitions, challenging the Places of Worship Act, 1991, which prohibits conversion of any place of worship.

It also provides “for the maintenance of the religious character of any place of worship as it existed on the 15th day of August 1947."

In pending cases, the courts would refrain from any "effective interim or final order" until further orders, according to a bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and justices Sanjay Kumar and K. V. Viswanathan.

"We are examining the vires, contours and the ambit of the 1991 Act," the bench said, according to the Press Trust of India news agency. The court asked the central government to file its reply to the pleas in four weeks.

Mosque-temple site issue

The top court's order has come amid Hindu groups filing back-to-back petitions in the courts claiming prominent mosques were built on the former site of temples in the recent past.

A local court recently accepted a petition to survey a famous 13th-century shrine of a Muslim saint in Ajmer in western Rajasthan state.

Earlier, a court ordered a survey of the Shahi Jama Masjid in the town of Sambhal in northern Uttar Pradesh in response to a petition claiming that a temple stood on the mosque's site.

While the survey was underway, it triggered clashes in the area which killed at least five people and injured several police officers.

The top court, however, halted the court’s proceedings on the matter.

A Hindu group recently demanded a survey of the iconic Jama Masjid, the main mosque in New Delhi, alleging that statues of Hindu deities were buried within the mosque.