Varanasi court rejects plea by Hindu side seeking carbon dating of Shiv Ling

New Delhi: Varanasi court Friday rejected plea by Hindu side seeking carbon dating of Shiv Ling in Gyanvapi Gauri Shringar complex.

The Hindu worshippers had sought a scientific investigation to determine the age of the structure in question.

The Court rejected the plea in view of the Supreme Court's order to protect the spot where a "shiv ling" was claimed to have been found during the survey.

Hindu petitioners had during a court-mandated videography survey of the mosque premises claimed that a "Shivling" was found close to the "wazookhana", a small reservoir used by Muslim devotees to perform ritual ablutions before offering the namaz.

The claim was disputed by the Muslim side, which said the object was part of a "fountain".

Out of the five Hindu women (plaintiffs) in the main suit, 4 women have moved the instant plea for a scientific investigation of the Shiva Linga allegedly found inside the Gyanvapi Mosque premises. One of the plaintiffs (Rakhi Singh) had opposed the plea for Carbon dating.

Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon. The method was developed in the late 1940s at the University of Chicago by Willard Libby.