NEW DELHI: Supreme Court on Friday asked UP government not to allow a fresh flashpoint over a well adjacent to Shahi Jama Masjid in Sambhal.
A bench of CJI Sanjiv Khanna & Justice Sanjay Kumar, which had earlier asked the mosque management committee to move Allahabad HC against a district court-ordered survey of the mosque, said, “It is a public well. What is the harm if people from all faiths use its water?”
However, the committee through senior advocate Huzefa Ahmadi said Sambhal municipality, even after the SC-ordered status quo relating to all temple-mosque disputes and ban on surveys of mosques, had issued an advertisement terming the well ‘Rishikesh well’ and inviting people to take bath in its water.
Appearing for UP govt, additional solicitor general K M Natraj said the situation was peaceful but the committee was attempting to vitiate the atmosphere by raising such an issue. “The well is a public well on govt land,” he said. When Ahmadi accused the state of acting in a partisan manner, the bench asked him to refrain from making such comments.
The bench asked UP government to file a status report in two weeks on the well issue.