Court Accepts Petition Asserting the Presence of a Shiv Temple within Ajmer Sharif Dargah

The Ajmer Civil Court has accepted a petition asserting the presence of a Sankat Mochan Mahadev temple within the premises of the dargah of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti in Ajmer, Rajasthan. As a result, the court will now proceed to hear the claim regarding the existence of the temple at the site. On Wednesday, the court issued notices to the respondents, including the Ministry of Minority Affairs, the Ajmer Dargah Committee, and the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), in response to the petition filed by Vishnu Gupta, the national president of Hindu Sena. The next hearing on the matter has been scheduled for December 20.

On 27th of November, the Rajasthan court accepted the petition filed by Vishnu Gupta, the chief of Hindu Sena, claiming that a Shiv temple lies within the Ajmer Sharif Dargah, the dargah of Sufi saint Moinuddin Chishti. It also issued notices to three entities in response to the lawsuit.

The court is being presided over by Manmohan Chandel. Hearing the petition that seeks to allow Hindu worship at the site again, he has directed notices to the Ajmer Dargah Committee, the Ministry of Minority Affairs, and the ASI’s New Delhi office seeking their responses.

Vishnu Gupta, the petitioner demands that the Ajmer dargah should be declared the “Sankat Mochan Mahadev Temple,” and has called for a survey of the site by the ASI. Gupta also stated that if the dargah has any official registration, it should be canceled, and Hindus should be granted the right to worship there.  In his plea, he stated, “Our demand was that the Ajmer dargah should be declared as Sankat Mochan Mahadev Temple and if the dargah has any kind of registration, then it should be cancelled. Its survey should be done through ASI and Hindus should be given the right to worship there,” 

The petition cites a 1911 book by retired judge Harvilas Sharda, titled Ajmer: Historical and Descriptive, which mentions the presence of Hindu carvings and iconography around the dargah, including on the Buland Darwaza. It also claims that debris from a Shiva temple was used to construct the dargah and that a Jain temple exists within the sanctum sanctorum. 

The Ajmer Dargah Committee has rejected these claims and the next date for the hearing has been kept 20th of December. As expected the opposition leaders have come forward criticising the development. MP Sanjay Singh of Aam Aadmi Party has asked the Supreme Court to intervene and stop further development in respect to the case.