The Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) and the Land and Development Office (L&DO) informed a bench of justices Pradeep Nandrajog and Pratibha Rani that as per a notification issued on December 10, 1969, under the Wakf Act, the mosque was 400 years old and a property of Delhi Wakf Board.
It also told the court that when land was allocated near Sher Shah Road for building the high court, a 0.12 acre area on which the mosque was situated was excluded.
The petitioner, however, withdrew his plea today after the bench told him that the land on which the mosque is situated does not belong to the high court and it cannot pass any order regulating it.
"How can we direct its demolition? It is a Wakf property," the court said to the petitioner, Ajay Gautam, who withdrew his plea.
The government had placed the notification and land allocation records before the bench as it had sought these documents to ascertain since when the mosque has been in existence in the court premises.