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Sabarimala queue: SLP to be heard by Supreme Court

J. Venkatesan

New Delhi: The Supreme Court will hear on January 16 a special leave petition against a Kerala High Court order directing the Executive Officer, Sabarimala temple, to see that there was no special queue in front of the sanctum sanctorum for VIPs to have darshan of Lord Ayyappa.

A three-judge Bench comprising Justice Ruma Pal, Justice A.R. Lakshmanan and Justice Dalveer Bhandari declined early listing and said the petition would come up for hearing in the normal course on January 16. During `mention' time, senior counsel C. S. Vaidyanathan pleaded for early hearing stating that the High Court order greatly affected the pilgrims.

The High Court had passed the order on December 19, 2005, acting on a report filed by the Special Commissioner for Sabarimala. According to it, the pilgrims standing in the regular queue faced a lot of difficulties because of the special queue. They could not get `darshan' of Lord Ayyappa, as their vision was blocked by the people standing in the special queue inside the cabin in front of the sanctum sanctorum.

In their petition, Ravikumar and Rajam Krishnan submitted that lakhs of devotees coming from far-off places to Sabarimala were now prevented from performing special pujas. They are being asked to go to the queue and stand in line with the general queue and not allowed to take part in the special puja offered by them.

The SLP contended that the appointment of the Special Commissioner was only for administrative reasons and it was not for any interference with the method and manner of function of the pujas, darshan etc. The Commissioner's report had the effect of interfering with the religious practice being followed from time immemorial by ordinary pilgrims.

The SLP further said that the High Court judgment had resulted in a situation where the devotees carrying `irumudi' and standing in long queue for special pujas would have to go back to another long queue for having darshan. The SLP also sought an interim stay of the operation of the impugned judgment.

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