KOLKATA: On Tuesday,  September 13, a division bench of the Calcutta High Court granted the West Bengal government conditional approval to provide donations of Rs. 60,000 crore to 43,000 community Durga Puja committees in the state.

The division bench of Chief Justice Prakash Srivastava and Justice Rajarshi Bharadwaj of the Calcutta High Court rejected arguments in a number of public interest litigations (PILs) that sought to prevent the state government from giving such donations to community Puja Committees and instead imposed six requirements.

The bench did not define the six criteria that were imposed when the order was passed. The involved parties were instead asked to review the complete copy of the order after it was posted on the Calcutta High Court's website.
On August 22, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced that she would be giving 60,000 crore rupees to 43,000 community Durga Puja committees, placing a strain of 258 million rupees on the state coffers.

She also disclosed a 60 percent rebate on the electrical bills for these neighbourhood Puja groups.

Several PILs were submitted to the aforementioned division bench. The petitioner argued that such expenditures on behalf of doles to community Durga Puja committees were needless expenditures at a time when the state government is unable to pay dearness allowance (9DA) arrears to the state government employees.

S.N. Mukhopadhyay, the state's advocate general, contended that the entire expenditure was made for public purposes because Durga Puja is a part of the state's rich legacy, which the state government wants to maintain and promote.

The court finally granted the state government's request to provide the funding to the Puja committees with conditions on Tuesday morning after hearing thorough arguments in the case.

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