Key Points

The High Court imposed this ban on the granting of funds to the Durga Puja committees in the state by the Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee government, while hearing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) against the West Bengal government's decision to provide grants to the puja committees.

At the same time, the Division Bench of Justice Sujoy Pal and Justice Smita Das De also ordered that all the Durga Puja clubs, that will receive the puja grants this year, will have to submit the utilisation certificates of their grant money to the West Bengal Director General of Police and Kolkata Police Commissioner within one month after Vijayadashami on October 2 this year. The matter will be heard again after a month of Durga Puja holidays.

In the hearing on Wednesday, state Advocate General Kishore Datta said, "A total of 41,795 clubs were given Puja grants last year. Out of them, only three clubs did not submit the utilisation certificates. Those clubs are from Siliguri in north Bengal."

After hearing this, Justice Sujoy Pal said the court does not want to go into the data and made its position clear that those who have not given the utilisation certificate will not be given money this year.

In this regard, advocate Bikas Ranjan Bhattacharya, representing the plaintiff, said that the court's order was that the utilisation certificate should be given within a specified time.

After hearing the arguments of both sides Justice Sujoy Pal said that the state will have to follow the 2022 Calcutta High Court order in the current year.

On September 13, 2022, Justice Prakash Shrivastava had ordered that the grants should be sanctioned only if the utilisation certificate of previous year's money was submitted within a specified time.

In 2022, the state government had told the court that the grants were given to raise awareness about 'Safe Drive, Save Life' and to comply with the Coronavirus restrictions.

This year, Chief Minister Banerjee has increased the grant for Durga Puja by Rs. 25,000 to Rs. 1,10,000 for each club, which will cost the state exchequer almost Rs 500 crore.

Following the announcement, two PILs were filed at the Calcutta High Court against the Durga Puja grant. One of the PILs has been filed by Durgapur resident Sourav Dutta, who has questioned how money from the state exchequer would be used to provide Durga Puja grants.

The state government started providing financial assistance to the puja committees in 2018. In the first year, the grant was Rs 10,000. In 2019, it was increased to Rs 25,000. After that, the amount of the grant continued to increase every year. Last year, it was increased to Rs 85,000.

- IANS