Calcutta High Court has stayed till Tuesday the distribution of Rs 10,000 each among Durga Puja committees across Bengal and asked the state government to clarify whether the Constitution allowed the appeasement of a religious community.

Chief minister Mamata Banerjee told a news conference later in the day: “What can we do if the court says ‘no’? We have already given the money. How can we claim back the grant?”

Officials said local police stations had already started disbursing the money among 28,000 Puja committees and there was no back-up plan to recover the amount if the final court order struck down the grant.

In the court, heading a division bench, acting Chief Justice Debasish Kargupta, said: “We often hear that the government is functioning amid an acute financial crisis. Then what prompted the state to appease a particular religious community by offering it the Puja grant?”

The court is hearing a PIL filed by advocates Saurav Dutta and Dutyiman Banerjee, who are represented by lawyer and former mayor Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharyya.

Justice Kargupta told advocate-general Kishore Dutta: “We want to know whether the state has any guideline for offering such festive grant for the Pujas…. If yes, whether there is any method to check the usage of the funds….”

When the state’s lawyers said the disbursal was part of a plan to popularise its “Safe Drive, Save Life” campaign, the bench asked if all religious communities were getting grants for their big festivals.

Dutta sought time from the court to give a detailed reply.

The government’s decision to grant monthly allowance to imams and muezzins was also challenged in the court in 2012. Although a division bench had stayed the allocation in September 2013, the allowances have continued through the state Wakf Board. The final order is pending.Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh said: “We had always been vocal against Mamata Banerjee’s dole politics. The dole to Puja organisers is against the constitutional ethos.”

The allowance for Imams and Muezzins also goes against the Constitution.”

During Friday’s hearing, when the government’s lawyers questioned the “locus standi” of the litigants, lawyer Bhattacharyya said: “If a government decision has the potential to create differences between religious communities and is considered contrary to the provisions of the Constitution, it can be challenged by anyone.”