After Gyanvapi plaintiff drops legal team, split set to spill over to other suits

Hari Shankar Jain calls it ‘betrayal’ but says he continues to represent the other four plaintiffs

The split that appeared among the Hindu plaintiffs in the Gyanvapi Mosque-Kashi Vishwanath Temple dispute, is now set to grow and spill over to other similar cases in Mathura and the suit related to the Qutub Minar complex in New Delhi.

On Tuesday, one of the five plaintiffs in the Gyanvapi dispute, Rakhi Singh, announced that she would no longer be engaging the services of Advocate Hari Shankar Jain and his team in their case. The announcement came from one Jitendra Singh Visen, who claimed to be Ms. Rakhi's uncle, holding the power of attorney to represent her in court.

Significantly, Mr. Singh is also the chief of the Vishwa Vedic Sanatan Sangh (VVSS) and has been closely associated with Mr. Jains' team.

However, after Mr. Singh's remarks, Mr. Jain told The Hindu that "this backstabbing was uncalled for" and that "he [Mr. Jitendra Singh] seems to have spotted an opportunity to do politics", even as lawyers from his team said that they now intended to distance themselves from Mr. Singh in all other matters everywhere.

Advocate Ranjana Agnihotri, part of Mr. Jain's legal team, said Mr. Singh's suit in the Mathura matter was a different one (Ms. Agnihotri is one of the original plaintiffs in the Shahi Idgah Mosque-Shri Krishna Janmabhoomi dispute). She said they also intended to distance themselves from the suit in Delhi with regards to the dispute over the Qutub Minar complex.

Mr. Singh joined the Mathura case through a suit filed by Kiran Singh, one of his relatives. In the Qutub Minar suit, claiming the existence of 27 Hindu and Jain temples at the site, Mr. Singh had been added as a plaintiff alongside Mr. Jain and Ms. Agnihotri.

“You can say we have personal issues,” Mr. Singh said on Wednesday. “Our working styles are different. Hari Shankar ji is quite old and his health does not allow him to represent us as robustly.”