Bhubaneswar/Cuttack: Devotees visiting Jagannath temple in Puri had to go without abhada (cooked mahaprasad) for the fourth consecutive day on Thursday, but the suar and mahasuar servitors hinted at the possibility of the temple's most famous offering being made available to people from Friday.

Suar Mahasuar Niyog secretary Krushna Chandra Samantara indicated that efforts were being made to make mahaprasad available to the visiting pilgrims, but he urged the temple administration to stop playing tricks with the niyog members.

The issue arose after the abhada could not be offered to the deities and went unsold because of the delay in rituals on April 16. Huge quantities of abhada had to be buried, resulting in losses to the servitors, who cook it. Ever since they have been demanding compensation for their losses and not cooking mahaprasad. The change in the attitude of suar sevayats, who cook abhada, is being attributed to the mounting resentment among the devotees over the denial of mahaprasad and the temple administration's efforts to address their grievances.

Chief temple administrator Pradeep Jena on Thursday appealed to the sevayats to respect the sentiments of the devotees and co-operate just as they had done for conduct of other rituals. Temple public relations officer Lakshmidhar Puja Panda also expressed hope about abhada being made available to people from Friday. "We hope so," he said adding that other rituals were going on smoothly.

In another development, Orissa High Court on Thursday steered clear of the controversy over restriction on the entry of servitors to garvagruha (sanctum sanctorum) of the Puri Jagannath temple, saying that it was a matter to be resolved by the state government and the shrine administration.

The court expressed its disinclination to involve itself in the dispute after the Shree Jagannath Temple Administration filed a petition for "modification" of the order the high court issued on April 10.

The petition said: "As the nitikanti (rituals) of Lord Jagannath is based on collective efforts and anticipating different eventualities (death, birth and illness of palia sevak), the restriction of entry of sevaks to the sanctum sanctorum other than palia of the day needs reconsideration to avoid dislocation of consistent seva puja and the delay in it."