Funding of puja pandals: Supreme Court notice to West Bengal government

The Supreme Court bench comprising Justices Madan B. Lokur and Deepak Gupta, issued notice to the West Bengal Government on October 12 on a petition that challenged the government’s decision to provide funding for Durga Puja celebrations. The bench, however, refused to stay the decision without hearing the State Government on the scope of its discretion to make such grants. Although the bench’s refusal to grant a stay would mean there is no fetter on the State government to fund the Durga puja celebrations starting next week, it remains to be seen whether the case would be heard and decided before Justice Lokur's tenure ends on December 31.

The Mamata Banerjee government has reportedly decided to gift Rs.10,000 each to 28,000 Durga Puja committees in the State. The petitioner-appellant, Sourav Dutta, argued that there was no guideline for spending Rs.28 crore earmarked for the celebrations by the State government.

The government’s decision was first challenged before the Calcutta High Court by two residents of the State, who submitted that public funding of a religious festival was against the principles of secularism. “Use of tax payers’ money for repair/restructuring/construction of any ‘religious place’ offends the spirit and object of Article 27 of the Constitution. The Constitution prohibits the state from compelling any person to pay any tax, proceeds of which is to be spent for the promotion of any particular religion or religious denomination,” the petitioner argued.

The High Court Division Bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Debasish Kar Gupta and Justice Sampa Sarkar refused to interfere on the grounds that the legislature was the appropriate forum to decide on expenditure by the State government and that the court could interfere at a later stage, if needed. The Advocate General of West Bengal, Kishore Dutta, defended the grant saying that it was meant to assist the police under its traffic safety campaign and not for any religious purpose.

The appellant challenged this reasoning on the grounds that there was no public purpose in Durga Puja celebrations, and that the decision violated Article 282 of the Constitution, under which the Union or a State may make any grants for any public purpose, notwithstanding that the purpose is not one with respect to which Parliament or the Legislature of the State, as the case may be, may make laws.

The Supreme Court had, in July, referred a similar issue to the Constitution Bench. The bench of Justices Rohinton Fali Nariman and Indu Malhotra referred to a larger bench the question whether religious activities can be allowed on government property in a secular country. This was after an organisation, the Jyoti Jagran Mandal, challenged in court the Delhi civic authorities’ decision to deny it permission to hold “jagran” and “mata ki chowki” at a park maintained by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi.

In another case that the apex court decided last year, it upheld the Gujarat government’s decision not to pay for repairs of shrines damaged in the 2002 pogrom.