The annual nine-day festival of Rath Yatra was to begin on June 23. (File)
Bhubaneswar:
The Odisha government said on Sunday that it would take “favorable measures” as legally authorized at the request of Gajapati Maharaja Dibyasingha Deb as Rath Yatra of Lord Jagannath, who was suspended by the Supreme Court this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, be authorized without congregation of the faithful.
After the Supreme Court suspended the Rath Yatra on Thursday, the state government faced enormous pressure from different quarters to intervene in the case.
“The state government will take favorable measures as legally authorized at the request of Gajapati Maharaj when the motion for a brief WP (C) No. 571 of 2020 is presented to the Supreme Court,” said the legal department of Odisha. in a statement.
The government’s response came a day after Gajapati Maharaja Deb asked him to file a new petition before the Supreme Court to seek an amendment to his June 18 order.
The titular king of Puri had also asked the state government to ask the court to authorize the yatra without any devotee and only in Puri because the holiday is “sanctioned and in accordance with religious scriptures and legal provisions.
More than a dozen petitions have been filed with the Supreme Court asking for the recall of his suspension order from the historic Lord Jagannath Rath Yatra, which was scheduled for June 23.
Some petitioners have asked the Supreme Court for the yatra to take place, and the three floats could be drawn by Jagannath temple servants and Puri police officials according to standards of social distancing, according to the legal department.
The state government said its position at the Supreme Court hearing on June 18 was mainly related to the thousands of ratha yatras taking place across Odisha, he said.
These involve hundreds of thousands of people and occur almost in every gram panchayat, he added.
The government said, “More than 5 lakhs of Odisha have returned to the state since May. Most of them are expected to complete their quarantine period by the end of June. This, with the onset of the monsoon, made the COVID pandemic likely peak in the state in June and July. “
The pandemic has killed hundreds of thousands of people around the world and Odisha has so far managed it effectively with the lowest death rate in the country, he said.
“Any congregation during the likely peak period can result in loss of life and serious public health risks,” he added.
The Odisha government has declared that the highest court, on June 18, after hearing all the parties, including the three interveners, adopted an order in the interest of public health and the safety of the citizens who are also devotees, preventing the state government from holding the Rath Yatra this year.
“In the meantime, the Gajapati Maharaj of Puri, also chairman of the management committee of the Sri Jagannath temple, wrote a letter dated June 20, 2020 to the state government, requesting in particular that the Rath Yatra of Puri be detained without any congregation of the general public and with the state government taking appropriate measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19, “he said.
Similar views were also submitted by stakeholders to the Supreme Court during the June 18 hearing, he said.
(This story has not been edited by GalacticGaming staff and is automatically generated from a syndicated feed.)
