CUTTACK: The State Government has claimed in the Orissa High Court that the sale of Bagala Dharmasala land in Puri town does not violate the provisions of Shri Jagannath Temple Act, 1955. Filing a preliminary counter affidavit in response to the PIL filed by BJP national spokesperson Sambit Patra, the Government stated that by the time the Act came into operation, the land had already lost its Amrutamanohi status.Amrutamanohi lands are extensive properties endowed to Lord Jagannath but in the possession of maths and other religious and charitable institutions connected with the Puri temple as caretakers.
Patra had filed a PIL seeking intervention against sale of Bagala Dharmasala land by claiming that the land belonged to Shri Jagannath Mahaprabhu under Amrutamanohi status. The sale of the land was illegal as the Shri Jagannath Temple Act, 1955 prohibited transfer or sale of Amrutamanohi lands. In the affidavit, Puri tehsildar Rabindra Kumar Pradhan admitted that the land had Amrutamanohi status and was recorded in the name of Shri Jagannath Mahaprabhu Bije, Puri Marfat Bhagaban Ramanuj Das.
However, the land was acquired by the State Government on request of one Kanheiyalal Bagala for the purpose of construction of a Dharmasala in the year 1901. Subsequently, a Dharmasala was constructed on it, he submitted.“By the time Shri Jagannath Temple Act, 1955 came into force, the case land was already a Government land in view of the acquisition and it was no more an endowment land of Shri Jagannath Mahaprabhu, hence the provisions of Section 5 and 33 of the Act are not applicable to the land,” the tehsildar contended. The PIL will come up for analogous hearing on November 2.