Calcutta High Court allows West Bengal government’s grant to Durga puja committees

The Court, while emphasising that the stand of the State is that the disbursement of the fund is for “public purpose” said that grant should be strictly utilised for the purpose.

The Calcutta High Court on September 13 refused to interfere in the decision of the West Bengal government to extend the grant to Puja Committees for organising community Durga pujas and disposed of a series of petitions challenging the State government’s move.

The Court, while emphasising that the stand of the State is that the disbursement of the fund is for “public purpose” said that grant should be strictly utilised for the purpose.

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“The stand of the State is that the disbursement of the fund is for public purpose and not to propagate or encourage a particular religion. Having regard to the material which has been pointed out above, we are not inclined to interfere in the decision of the State to extend the grant to Puja Committees. However, we are of the opinion that the grant should be strictly utilised for the purpose which has been mentioned in the Order dated 6th of September, 2022 so that the public purpose contained therein is achieved,” the order by Division Bench of Chief Justice Prakash Shrivastava and Justice Rajarshi Bharadwaj said.

 The West Bengal government has decided to increase the grant to Durga puja clubs this year from ₹50,000 to ₹60,000 each. About 40,028 clubs (37,028 under West Bengal police and 3,000 under Kolkata police) will get a cash grant of ₹60,000 each which will cost ₹240.16 crore to the State exchequer. 

In the order, the division Bench imposed six conditions which included that the “grant will be released only to those Clubs/Puja Committees who in the previous year had utilised the same for the purpose it was granted and had duly submitted the utilisation certificate within time”.