West Bengal govt allowed immersion of Durga idols till late Tuesday evening
The Calcutta high court had rapped the West Bengal government last week for imposing restrictions on immersion of Durga idols
Kolkata: Rapped by the Calcutta high court last week for imposing restrictions on immersion of Durga idols, the West Bengal government finally relented and allowed puja organisers to immerse their idols on Tuesday till late in the evening.
Without issuing an official notification, the state administration had informally asked community puja organisers to defer immersion by two days till after the Muslim festival of Muharram was observed on Wednesday, 12 October.
Previously, the administration had said that immersion of idols will be allowed only till four in the afternoon on 11 October, triggering an outrage among a section of puja organisers. The diktat made it practically impossible for community puja organisers to immerse their idols on Tuesday.
Some aggrieved families moved the Calcutta high court, saying they were being forced to break tradition. These families said it is a sacred ritual to take out the idols out of their homes only after sunset.
The state government’s lawyer Abhrotosh Majumdar had said in court last week that the idea of imposing restrictions on immersion this year was intended to avoid conflict between Hindus and Muslims.
The Calcutta high court said the restrictions, communicated to the public through an official Kolkata Police website, were not permissible.
For want of formal notification, justice Dipankar Datta said: “A decision not on paper cannot be enforced in any manner whatsoever. Someone has to take responsibility for such decision.”
Without questioning the state’s authority to regulate processions, Datta said that “such power has to be exercised reasonably, rationally and without discrimination”.
“Never has there been a restriction on immersion of Durga idols on Bijoya Dashami” even though Durga Puja and Muharram have coincided several times in the past, the judge observed, describing the restrictions imposed by the administration as “arbitrary”.
“The state government must realise that it would be dangerous to mix politics with religion. We, the people of India, boast of being secular…but actions of some state governments are in deviation of the constitutional norms and principles. No decision ought to be taken that would have the potential of pitting one community against another,” Dutta said in his interim order.
Though the court extended the time for immersion by family pujas till 8.30pm on Tuesday, the administration eased the restrictions for all puja organisers. Immersion took place till late in the evening on Tuesday.
“Clearly, the state government yielded to popular pressure,” said a key official, asking not to be identified. “The high court order was an embarrassment and it was decided that nothing should be done to make matters worse,” he added.
Even the biggest crowd puller among community pujas in Kolkata for the past couple of years, Deshapriya Park, concluded festivities with immersion on Tuesday.
“We did it a little early this year,” said Sudipto Kumar, secretary of the organising committee. “We are happy that it ended early this year because we were already horribly tired.”
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Business NewsPoliticsPolicyWest Bengal govt allowed immersion of Durga idols till late Tuesday evening
First Published:12 Oct 2016, 10:14 PM IST
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