Bengal govt’s grant to Durga Puja committees faces twin legal hurdles

The West Bengal government’s annual grant to Durga Puja committees is facing twin legal hurdles in the form of “lack of justification” for the largesse and “non-fulfilment” of a court guideline.

The state government introduced the grant after the outbreak of COVID  in 2020 to offset the pandemic-induced hardship of puja committees. That year, the state government gave ₹50,000 each to the committees.

Likewise, the financial assistance was extended to around 40,000 registered puja committees across the state even last year. The state government had then said the support was provided as “due to the COVID situation, the committees did not get enough sponsors and advertisements” to organise the annual festival.

Fund usage norms

Hearing a petition, the Calcutta High Court had, in 2020, set a clear guideline that the puja organisers would have to spend 75 per cent of the grant amount for procuring coronavirus protection equipment. The balance of 25 per cent was to be utilised to strengthen public-police bonding.

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The court had made it very clear that the beneficiary committees would not use the grant for any other purpose. It had also categorically stated that the details of the expenditure needed to be furnished for audit.

This year, the state government increased the grant amount to ₹60,000 per committee though, unlike the previous two years, there are no pandemic-related economic restrictions.

This has raised questions about the motive behind the assistance, particularly when Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee herself admitted while announcing the assistance on August 22 that the state exchequer is empty as the Centre is not releasing the state’s “pending dues”.

Additional burden

The grant to around 43,000 puja committees this year will put an additional burden of around ₹300 crore on the state’s coffer. The Calcutta High Court has sought to know the rationale behind the move. 

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Apart from financial assistance, the state government also decided to give a 60 per cent rebate on electricity bills of the puja committees.

Hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) that challenged the state government’s decision, the high court on Monday directed the Trinamool government to file an affidavit before it by September 5 clarifying why the grant has been offered.

Advocate General SN Mukherjee argued in the court that the state government was yet to issue a notification in this regard. Lawyer of the petitioner Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, however, pointed out that the Chief Minister had announced the grants during a meeting of the puja committees.

Expenditure details

Apart from the question of justification, sources in the state government said the offer will also face legal challenge as many of the committees which had received the dole last year did not submit their expenditure details as was mandated by the court.

More than 15,000 committees across the state are yet to give details of how they had spent the grant amount last year, which might be viewed as a violation of the court’s guideline, sources added.