The Supreme Court on Friday refused to stay the Bengal government’s grants of Rs 10,000 each to puja committees but issued a notice to the state on the larger issue related to the constitutional validity of doles for religious festivities.

“We are not granting any stay but are issuing a notice,” a bench of Justices Madan B. Lokur and Deepak Gupta said after briefly hearing advocate Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya. The state has been given six weeks to file its response.

Bhattacharya appeared for two petitioners who have appealed a Calcutta High Court order two days ago upholding the grants to around 28,000 puja committees amounting to Rs 28 crore.

The high court had observed that it had no jurisdiction in matters related to expenditure incurred by governments and such questions could only be raised on the floors of the Assembly.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, who appeared for the state government in the Supreme Court, pointed out that the amounts had been disbursed to the puja committees through local police stations after “thorough scrutiny”.

The committees will have to submit utilisation certificates to the government after the celebrations, Sibal added.

The petitioners have contended that the decision violates Articles 27 and 282 of the Constitution.

Under Article 27, both state and central governments are prohibited from compelling any person to pay any tax, the proceeds of which are to be spent on the promotion of any particular religion or religious denomination.

“Therefore, the decision of the state relating to grant for organising puja is unconstitutional and is liable to be set aside,” the petition states.

Under Article 282, the Centre and the states can make grants for public purposes even if they are not within their legislative competence. The petitioners have argued that no public purpose would be served by granting money and/or handing out concessions to the puja organisers.

“Most puja organisers had been given the cheques before the high court stayed the process on October 5 (before clearing it on October 10). The rest were handed over by Thursday evening. The police carried out the exercise with urgency as only a few days to go before Puja,” a state official had said on Thursday.