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The petition claims that there is a systematic effort to get temporary court orders in order to alter the nature of a house of worship.
The Supreme Court has been asked to prohibit the Hindu Maha Shivaratri puja from being held on the grounds of the Ladle Mashaik Dargah and to issue orders against any construction or renovations that might change the site's current religious significance.
A bench made up of Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant heard the case.
Senior Advocate Vibha Datta Makhija, speaking on behalf of the dargah, asked the court to consider the plea prior to the February 15 Maha Shivaratri.In Gulbarga, Kalburgi, Karnataka, there is an Aland Dargah. They now wish to celebrate Shivaratri there. "If possible, please have it heard by February 15th," she stated.
Although the Court acknowledged that it would take the request into consideration, it bemoaned the growing trend of cases of this nature being brought to the Supreme Court without first consulting the relevant High Courts.Why does Article 32 contain all of this information? The message conveyed is that the High Court is no longer in operation, and it appears that pleas are arriving because the legislation is convenient. We'll investigate. "Let's see," remarked CJI Kant.
Both the relics of the 15th-century Hindu saint Raghava Chaitanya and the 14th-century Sufi saint Hazrat Shaikh Alauddin Ansari, also called Ladle Mashaik, are buried at the shrine at the center of the controversy. On the grounds is another building known as the Raghava Chaitanya Shivling.
The location was used for worship by both Muslims and Hindus. However, after some miscreants allegedly threw feces on the Shivling, communal tensions over the freedom to worship erupted in 2022.
The Karnataka High Court allowed 15 Hindus to do Shivaratri puja at the Raghava Chaitanya Shivaling in February 2025. The same was carried out with strict security measures in place.
Based on a court decision permitting 15 Hindus to enter the dargah premises and perform the rites, it is also reported that Hindu pujas were held to commemorate Shivaratri a year prior without any unfortunate happenings.
The plea claims that this is a coordinated effort to get temporary court orders in order to alter the nature of a house of worship.The pattern is clearly discernible and extremely concerning, it is respectfully submitted. Interim orders are obtained from the High Court in order to manufacture what cannot be shown by evidence and adjudication. The plea has claimed that police-facilitated entry during festivals is intended to accomplish what is prohibited by the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991.
According to the petition, an application for permission to build a Samadhi or temple within the Dargah property was denied by the Town Municipal Council of Aland in 1968 following a spot inspection. The location was noted as the Mazaar of Hazrath Mardan-e-Gaib, encircled by Muslim tombs, and there was no supporting documentation for any non-Wakf structure.
Despite this established stance, numerous attempts to reopen the shrine's religious status through civil lawsuit have all failed.
According to the plea, communal mobilization was tried after the litigation failed, and on February 1, 2022, the Shree Siddalingaswamy Karuneswar Temple at Andola celebrated Mahashivaratri by announcing the "Aland Chalo" padayatra to "cleanse a Shivalinga" at the Mazaar.
According to the appeal, festival-specific applications and lawsuits requesting permission to perform Pooja on Mahashivaratri were used to try to overturn the Karnataka Wakf Tribunal's restraint.According to the plea, "each proceeding is timed strategically, each invokes a different forum, and each is intended to establish a foothold upon which the subsequent proceeding can build."
The most recent of these attempts, according to the Dargah petition, was a writ petition submitted in 2026 by Sidramayya Hiremath to the Karnataka High Court, asking for an order to the State and police authorities to allow him and other devotees to perform pooja on the Dargah grounds on February 15 (Mahashivaratri), with police protection.
The same individual submitted a similar case in 2025, and the High Court granted permission for 15 people to enter and perform puja on Mahashivaratri.The plea alleges that these petitions are being made year after year during Shivaratri simply to establish a foothold of religious admittance, turn temporary access into an established practice, and then again litigate to reopen the site's character.
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