A day after Calcutta High Court passed a rigorous order disciplining the Durga Puja organisers by making Puja pandals out of bounds for the general public, Kolkata’s top Puja organisers on Tuesday filed a review petition in the same court seeking relaxation in severity of the order.
The matter will be heard on Wednesday, the petitioners said.
Among the petitioners are Chetla Agrani, Suruchi Sangha, NaktalaUdayan Sangha, Hindusthan Club, backed by State Ministers and seniorTrinamool Congress leaders like Firhad Hakim, Arup Biswas, ParthoChatterjee and Chandrima Bhattacharya.
Apart from them Forum For Durgotsav Committee an umbrella body ofabout 150 Puja organizers too filed a reviewed petition to be heard onWednesday.
Though the ministers would not want to be quoted sources close to themthe order could cause grave hardships for the management committees interms of maintaining the crowds.
One of the spokespersons of the Forum said, “Most of the big Pujas areorganized inside small lanes particularly in North Kolkata where it isvery difficult to manage thousands of visitors who choke the pandalpremises… which is why we have to make plans to manage the crowd wellin advance … this year we made special plans to ease the crowd. Butthe order has put us in a bind as it has made the pandal and 10 metressurrounding it as ‘no entry zones’.
“This will add to the chaos because unlike in usual circumstances thevisitors will not be able to use entry-exit gates both of which arewithin no entry zones. So they will come near the pandal and returntaking the same route which will create a logjam … imagine there aretimes when the each pandal records 5,000-10,000 visitors per hour…. Soinstead of social distance it will create chaos.”
The organizers said the order could have an impact on business inBengal which amounted to several thousand crores.
Delivering the Monday’s order Bench of Justices Sanjib Banerjee andArijit Banerjee said that the Puja pandals should be treated ascontainment zones and directed the State administration to mark 5metre area around small pandals and the 10 metre area around biggerpandals as the limit till which the general people would be allowed togo.
Even the entry of the club members was restricted inside the pandalseven as the Court said that not more than 25 members would be allowedinside. The Court directed the administration to collect the names of25 persons each from the respective Durga Puja committees beyond whono one would be allowed to enter the Puja premises. These names andnumbers of such persons have to be fixed and cannot change every day,the court said.
The Court’s decision came against a Public Interest Litigation filedby Advocate Sabyasachi Chatterjee and will be applicable to about37,000 Durga Puja pandals, big and small all across the State. Out ofthese there are about 3,500 Puja pandals in Kolkata alone.
Incidentally a band of top Kolkata doctors requested the Government toscale down the festivites warning post Pujas there could be a massivespike in corona cases.
“Already the health infrastructure is bursting at its seams and if thecrowding is allowed then it would go out of control,” a senior doctorhad told reporters in the Press Club.