Allahabad High Court on Thursday upheld the order of the Varanasi district court to conduct a survey of the Gyanvapi mosque to find out whether it was built by demolishing a part of a temple.

Later on Thursday, the Anjuman Intezamia Committee, the management committee of the mosque, moved the Supreme Court against the Allahabad High Court order. The matter was mentioned by advocate Nizam Pasha before Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, who was heading a five-judge constitution bench hearing arguments on Article 370 and was rising for the day, seeking an urgent hearing.

“Allahabad High Court has passed an order today. We have filed an SLP (special leave petition) against the order. I have sent an email (seeking urgent hearing). Let them not proceed with the survey,” Pasha said.

CJI Chandrachud assured the lawyer that he would consider the plea for urgent listing of the appeal. “I will look at the email right away,” the judge said.

Vishnu Shankar Jain, a counsel for the Hindu petitioners, told reporters at the gate of the high court: “The high court has rejected the plea of the Anjuman Intezamia Committee to discontinue the survey of the premise of the mosque and said that the Archaeological Survey of India should resume its work.”

“The ASI had submitted an affidavit that it wouldn’t harm the building of the mosque during the course of the survey. The high court said there was no reason to doubt the agency and the survey must resume,” Jain said.

Responding to a petition against the district court’s order of July 21, the Supreme Court had on July 24 put a stay on the survey for two days and asked the Intezamia to move the high court, which in turn had extended the stay.

One of the parties from the Hindu side has also filed a caveat in the apex court saying that no orders should be passed without hearing them in the matter.

Rejecting the apprehensions of the Intezamia, ASI additional director Alok Tripathi had told the high court bench of Chief Justice Pritinker Diwaker that the agency would conduct a ground-penetrating radar survey that wouldn’t leave even a scratch on the buildings. He had also informed the high court that the ASI had already conducted 5 per cent of the survey on July 24 before the Supreme Court stayed the process.

The mosque’s wazukhana, where a structure claimed by Hindu litigants to be a Shivling exists and which the Muslims say is a fountain, will not be part of the survey. It is the contention of the Hindu litigants that the Gyanvapi mosque was built during Emperor Aurangzeb’s time by demolishing a part of the adjoining Kashi-Vishwanath temple.

The Vishwa Hindu Parishad, a wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, and Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath have thrown their weight behind the four women petitioners from Varanasi — Sita Sahu, Manju Vyas, Lakshmi Devi and Rekha Pathak.

Adityanath had said earlier this week: “A dispute will arise if we call it a masjid. I believe that those to whom God has given eyes must see it. What is a trident doing inside a mosque? I didn’t put it there. There is a Jyotirlinga and idols of gods.”

An advocate commissioner appointed by the Varanasi court had claimed to have found such items on the Gyanvapi premises. The Intezamia had rejected the claim. Sunni cleric Khalid Rashid Firan_gimahli said: “Aurangzeb lived in the 17th century but Gyanvapi has been standing for over 600 years. There is enough proof that people used to offer namaz there six centuries ago. We want protection from the Supreme Court.”

S. Rajalingam, the DM of Varanasi, told reporters on Thursday: “The ASI will resume the survey on Friday.”