Sabarimala : Kerala Govt Moves Supreme Court Against HC Direction To Raise Number Of Daily Permissible Pilgrims As 5000

The Kerala Government has filed a special leave petition in the Supreme Court challenging the direction of the High Court of Kerala to raise the number of daily permissible pilgrims as 5000.

Taking note of the COVID-19 pandemic situation, a High Level Committee under the Chairmanship of the Kerala Chief Minister had decided on October 5 to permit pilgrimage at Sabarimala during the present mandalakalam season allowing 1000 daily pilgrims on weekdays and 2000 daily pilgrims on weekends and 5000 daily pilgrims on special pooja days. The pilgrims were required to register through the virtual queue system and to provide Covid negative certificate from an authorized lab.

Challenging these restrictions, several devotees had filed writ petitions in the High Court. On December 18, a division bench of Justices C T Ravikumar and K Haripal disposed of the petitions raising the permissible number as 5000.

In the SLP challenging this direction, the State Government says that the number of police officials, health officials and pilgrims affected by Covid-19 in the Sabarimala Temple so far is on the higher side.

The entry to the temple is controlled by virtual queue managed by the police personals and pilgrims are tested for Covid-19 before allowing them to enter the temple. Increase in the number of pilgrims will put the police personal and the officials of the health department in great strain and difficulty in controlling the pilgrims of this magnitude, the plea filed in the top court says.

"The increasing the number of pilgrims at this stage to 5000 per day will definitely affect the variousmeasures taken by the State Government for controlling the Covid-19 spread in the State. These situations of the State and the world over were overlooked by the High Court while unilaterally increasing the number of pilgrims from 2000 to 5000 per day", reads the plea.

The SLP also makes a mention about the new strain of Coronavirus detected in the United Kingdom which has led the Union Government to cancel the flights from UK.

It is also stated that during the pendency of the petitions in the High Court, the High Level Committee had raised he number from 1000 to 2000 per day on weekdays and 3000 on weekends. This decision was based on the recommendations of the Revised Health Advisory on Sabarimala pilgrimage in the context of Covid-19 dated 14.12.2020.

"This being the situation, the High Court ought not to have interfered with the already enhanced number of pilgrims and substitute the number with its own number ie. 5000 pilgrims per day in place of 2000 per day. The enhancement of pilgrims number to 5000 has been done by the impugned judgment without any supporting documents,and on the other hand,the number was fixed by the High Level Committee after considering the Revised Health Advisory submitted by the Principal Secretary of Health and Family Welfare Department", the plea states.