Andhra Pradesh High Court directs TTD to file affidavit on break darshan

Source: newindianexpress.com

IJAYAWADA: The division bench of the Andhra Pradesh High Court comprising Acting Chief Justice C Praveen Kumar and Justice M Satyanarayana Murthy heard arguments against the grant of VIP break darshan in Tirumala.

The petitioner’s counsel Umesh Chandra PVG appealed the court to declare the action of respondents in granting ‘Very Break Darshanam’ to a specific category of devotees as illegal, unconstitutional, arbitrary and ultra vires of Articles 14, 25 and 26 of the Constitution of India.

He also urged the court to give directions to end the categorization of devotees as being done by the State government of Andhra Pradesh and Tirumala Tirupathi Devastanams (TTD) board.

The TTD was supposed to file its counter on Monday, but the TTD standing counsel informed the bench that ‘VIP Break Darshan’ would be done away with and that the chairman had made a statement to that effect recently.

However, the petitioner’s counsel submitted before the court that the TTD board has not been constituted yet and a unilateral statement by chairman without the consent of the board doesn’t pass the muster of legal scrutiny.

Also, the counsel informed the court that the TTD was contemplating to change the nomenclature of the ‘VIP Break Darshan’ and therefore the new envisaged darshan should not possess the character of the L1, L2 and L3 darshans and the counsel further argued that the government should submit an affidavit to that effect.

After hearing the petitioner at length, the bench directed the counsel representing TTD to file an affidavit by Thursday.