A day ahead of Durga Puja in West Bengal, Calcutta High Court has given some relief to puja organisers in the state and issued a set of new rules and relaxations after the court had earlier ordered a ban on public entry.
Just days before the Durga Puja festivities start in West Bengal, the Calcutta High Court on Monday declared all pandals across the state no-entry zones to prevent the surge in coronavirus cases in the state.
On Wednesday, the high court heard a review petition filed by a group of Durga Puja organisers and issued a set of new guidelines and has allowed more people to enter the pandals while asking the bigger pujas to expand the pandal premises.
However, the court has not given permission for the popular rituals of ‘Anjali’ on Ashtami and ‘Sindur Khela’ on Dashami.
What are the court directives?
1) Dhakis have been allowed to be present just outside the no-entry zone in each pandal.
2) List of persons who are allowed in the pandal should be fixed on a day-to-day basis and the list has to be hung every day at 8 am.
3) For the smaller pujas the number of maximum persons allowed will now be 15.
4) For the larger pujas (pandals must be more than 300 sq mts in size) and the maximum number of people to be included in the prior list is 60. But not more than 45 to be present at any point of time.
The matter has been disposed of by the court and there will be no further hearings.
A division bench of the high court comprising Justices Sanjib Banerjee and Arijit Banerjee, while hearing a public interest litigation, said that no visitors will be allowed to enter the Durga Puja pandals in Bengal.
For small pandals, barricades will have to be put up five metres from the entrance, while for the bigger ones, the distance has to be 10 metres, the court ordered. There should be 'no-entry' boards on the barricades.