The Supreme Court on Thursday declined to entertain a petition filed by the management of the Aland Ladle Mashaik Dargah in Kalaburagi district of Karnataka seeking to restrain the conduct of Mahashivratri rituals within the shrine premises.
Mahashivratri will be observed on Sunday.
The dargah is associated with 14th-century Sufi saint Hazrat Shaikh Alauddin Ansari, popularly known as Ladle Mashaik, and 15th-century Hindu saint Raghava Chaitanya. The site houses the Raghava Chaitanya Shivling, where Hindu devotees have sought to perform prayers during Shivratri.
Both Muslim and Hindu devotees have historically visited the shrine. However, disputes over worship rights led to communal tensions in 2022.
In recent years, the Karnataka High Court has permitted a limited number of Hindu devotees to offer Shivratri prayers at the Shivling under tight security arrangements. In February 2025, the court allowed 15 members of the Hindu community to perform rituals for the festival. A similar arrangement was made in 2024, with no reported untoward incidents.
In its petition before the Supreme Court, the dargah management said the property had been declared Waqf property by the Waqf Tribunal. It argued that repeated interim orders allowing festival prayers amounted to attempts to alter the religious character of the shrine, contrary to the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991, which bars changes to the status of places of worship as they existed on August 15, 1947.
A bench comprising Justices Dipankar Datta and S.C. Sharma observed that a petition under Article 32 of the Constitution was not appropriate in the matter. Following the court’s remarks, the plea was withdrawn.