The Supreme Court on Monday asked the high-powered committee (HPC) overseeing the management of Thakur Shree Bankey Bihari Ji Maharaj Temple in Vrindavan to respond to “serious allegations” leveled against it, including changing of darshan timings and suspension of the traditional Dehri Pooja.
Acting on a plea filed by the temple ‘sevayats’ accusing the HPC of interfering with essential religious practices of the temple, a Bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi granted a week’s time to the court-appointed committee to file its response and listed the matter for hearing on May 26.
The ‘sevayats’ alleged that the HPC overstepped its bounds by interfering with key religious rituals, challenging the sacred traditional practices of the temple.
Emphasizing the temple’s unique historical adherence to seasonal rituals, the petitioners asserted that changes imposed by the committee, such as altered darshan timings and exorbitant charges for services, disrupted essential religious customs.
Earlier, in a status report filed in the top court, the HPC had defended the sweeping reforms such as discontinuation of VIP darshan slips and a restructuring of temple timings, saying these were necessary measures to ensure safety, fairness and orderly access for the surging number of devotees.
The decision to scrap the VIP darshan system was taken unanimously and was aimed at ending preferential access that allowed a select few to bypass queues, the HPC had submitted. The practice was incompatible with equitable access to the deity and had to be removed as part of broader efforts to streamline crowd management and restore sanctity to the darshan process, it had said.