Vijayawada: A public interest litigation was filed before the Andhra Pradesh High Court on Thursday against the practice of giving VIP break darshans by the TTD.
Petitioner J. Venkata Subbarao moved the court stating that the practice was discriminative and infringed on a slew of fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution.
Mr Subba Roa of Pamidipadu, Korisapadu mandal of Prakasam district, in his petition stated that allowing categorisation on the basis of the position that an individual holds in society or an individual’s influence was a a travesty of constitutional safeguards, abuse of legal process, statutory power. “Every devotee has a fundamental right to worship the deity equally,” Mr Subba Rao said.
Represented by counsel Umesh Chandra PVG, Mr Rao said there was no definition anywhere defining which section of devotees fall under the different categories of break darshan such as L1, L2 and L3. this conferred unbridled power on the deciding authorities to decide the categorization arbitrarily. He stated the categorisation, especially L3, had become a breeding ground for unlawful activities in Tirumala.
Mr Subba Rao said that categorization which is done at the instance of the state government and TTD, is a blatant violation of Articles 14, 25 and 26 of the Constitution and sought justice to all devotees.
