Court restricts media for spot reporting of Gyanvapi survey

Varanasi, Aug 9 The district court on Wednesday restricted the media from on the spot reporting of survey of Gyanvapi complex by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and directed the agency not to share its findings with anyone.
The order was passed by District Judge Ajay Krishna Vishvesha on an application moved by the Anjuman Intezamia Masajid Committee, which manages day to day affairs of the Gyanvapi mosque. The court has fixed August 17 as the next date of hearing
Mohammad Touhid Khan, counsel of the Intezamia Committee, said that District Judge Ajay Krishna Vishvesha heard the application moved by the committee praying to restrict media coverage of ASI survey of Gyanvapi complex terming the coverage of news as misleading in the public domain.
Subhash Nandan Chaturvedi, counsel of the plaintiffs, said the district judge directed not to leak findings of the ASI survey in the media and also directed the agency not to share any information regarding Gyanvapi mosque with the media.
Touhid Khan said the application moved on Tuesday stated that the survey was being done by the ASI on the orders of the court. The ASI team nor any of its officials gave any statement, but news was being spread on social media, being published in the newspapers and telecasted on media channels.
Another counsel of Hindu side Madan Mohan Yadav said that the district court directed that media should not do on the spot reporting of Gyanvapi complex and the members of the ASI team should not share any information with the media.
He said that the district court further directed that the findings of the ASI should also not be spread on social media as it may cause breach of peace. In its application the Intezamia Committee stated that these news were misleading and gave a wrong impression on the larger public, therefore such kind of news must be stopped from being published or telecast on social media, newspapers and news channels.
Meanwhile, the ASI survey of Gyanvapi complex continued on the sixth consecutive day on Wednesday. The survey began at 8 am and continued till 12:30pm and after a break it again started at 2 pm and concluded for the day at 5 pm.
The ASI team in its survey is trying to find out whether the structures and pillars and signs were present there before the 17th century mosque was built on a pre-existing Hindu temple.