The Kalighat temple

Calcutta High Court on Friday barred pandas from the sanctum sanctorum of the Kalighat temple.

The division bench of Chief Justice J.N. Patel and Justice Sambuddha Chakrabarti directed the temple committee to appoint “purohits (priests)” to perform puja. Only these priests, with identity cards, will be allowed inside the sanctum sanctorum.

“The temple committee will appoint purohits and issue them identity cards and gate passes for entering the sanctum sanctorum of the temple to offer puja on behalf of the devotees. The devotees will have to enter the place in queues. No panda will be allowed to enter the sanctum sanctorum,” the court said.

Earlier, during the course of the hearing, it had been decided by the bench that the purohits would be selected from the pandas themselves. On Friday, the court said only two of them would be allowed to enter the temple on any given day.

Pandas have often been accused of extorting devotees, seeking large donations in the name of the goddess and even, on occasion, picking devotees’ pockets and assaulting them.

If Friday’s court order is properly implemented, devotees could finally hope to have a hassle-free Kalighat experience, said a source.

So far, every attempt — made either by the court or police — to rein in the Kalighat pandas have failed on multiple occasions.

On Friday, the court also asked the temple committee to appoint a private agency to oversee the temple’s internal security. “The agency will have the liberty to seek police assistance if and when required. The police are directed to provide all required assistance to the private agency,” the bench said.

The bench also asked the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) to review and file a report within a fortnight as to whether the Kalighat temple could be declared a “national monument”.

“The ASI would have to find out whether the temple fulfils all the criteria for declaring a heritage place a national monument,” the bench said.

The court said it would consider a state government proposal to dissolve the existing temple committee and hand over the temple upkeep to a committee of “eminent persons” if it failed to implement Friday’s orders properly.

The court was hearing a PIL filed by Calcuttan Surabhi Bose, who alleged that the present committee had failed to obey an earlier order of the court and provide proper security to devotees inside the sanctum sanctorum.

Following that petition, the government had told the court that it had chalked out a plan to maintain the temple. If the court allowed, the government would proceed with its plan, government pleader Ashok Banerjee had said last week.

The court, however, did not clarify how much time the existing committee had to implement the orders.