LUCKNOW: Hindutva Yogi Adityanath-led Uttar Pradesh government has appointed retired judge Ajaya Krishna Vishvesha, who allowed Hindus to worship in the sealed basement of the Gyanvapi mosque complex, the ombudsman of a public university in Lucknow.
Judge Ajaya Krishna Vishvesha’s appointment comes nearly a month after he handed over the basement of the Gyabvapi mosque to Hindus. Vishvesha retired as the Varanasi district judge on January 31. He passed the order allowing Hindus to worship in the Gyanvapi mosque basement on the day of his retirement.
Vishvesha was on February 27 appointed as the ombudsman of the Dr Shakuntala Misra National Rehabilitation University, a government university of which Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath is the chairperson. He was appointed for a term of three years.
The Hindutva-aligned retired judge will be the first person to hold the post at the university.
The caretakers of the Gyanvapi Masjid termed the Vishvesha’s order illegal and inappropriate. They challenged it, as well as its swift implementation within a matter of hours by the Varanasi administration, in the Allahabad high court.
The high court, however, did not stop the Hindus from worshipping in the basement of the mosque and on February 26 ruled in favour of the continuation of worship at the site.
Earlier, the Yogi Adityanath government had appointed CBI special court judge Surendra Kumar Yadav as the deputy ombudsman in the state. Yadav had acquitted senior BJP leaders Lal Krishna Advani, Murali Manohar Joshi, Uma Bharti, Kalyan Singh and others in the Babri Masjid demolition case on 30 September 2020.
