Mamata Banerjee to move Supreme Court against Calcutta High Court's Durga idol immersion order

The West Bengal government on Thursday decided to challenge the Calcutta High Court's Durga idol immersion order in the Supreme Court.

The state government will move the top court on Friday against the High Court's ruling allowing visarjan on Muharram on October 1.

Earlier in the day, the Calcutta High Court had put a stay on the Mamata Banerjee government’s notification banning immersion of Durga idol on Muharrum.

The court also ordered the administration to make sure that there are no clashes between members of the two communities.

A division bench of Justice Rakesh Tiwari and Justice Harish Tandon ordered the state government on Thursday to plan the routes of Muharrum’s procession and idol immersion separately and in such a way that those did not overlap.

The bench also said that there would not be any restriction to immersion of idols and idols could be immersed everyday after ‘dashami’ which is on September 30, the last day of the five-day Durga Puja, till midnight, including October 1, which is Muharrum.

The state government had banned idol immersion after 10 pm on September 30 and said there would be no immersion on October 1 because of Muharrum. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had said that there would be thousands of people on the streets and restrictions would help maintaining law and order. After the final disposal of the case, the order of the court could be used for future reference if there is any clash of dates between Muharrum and Durga Puja.

The bench directed the director general of police saying that police should take immediate steps if there was any sign of trouble. Priyanka Tibrewal, the lawyer on behalf of petitioners against the government notification said, “Administration has to chalk out separate routes for idol immersion and Muharrum procession and publicise it widely.”

The court had criticised the state government saying that administration could not exercise indiscriminately. It asked what was the apprehension on the basis of which the ban was imposed. The court also said that if there was a law and order situation, there were different steps to be taken to bring situation under control and the final step had to be opening gunfire. In this case too it looked like the state had taken the final step at once.

After the court passed the order, Mamata Banerjee called an emergency meeting with top cops at Nabanna, the state secretariat and asked them to make arrangements in sync with the court order. Later in the evening while inaugurating a puja in south Kolkata a visibly enraged Chief Minister said the administration would work according to the court’s instruction and trouble makers would be strongly dealt with.

“Someone can slit my throat but no one tells me what I am supposed to do. I have been brought up on the lines that people of all religions should be given equal treatment,” she said.

State BJP leaders were quick to react. “This is not the first time that the court has slapped the state government for its attempted high-handedness. Mamata Banerjee must have got used to it,” said state BJP president Dilip Ghosh.

(With additional inputs from Arshad Ali in Kolkata)