VIJAYAWADA: The Andhra Pradesh High Court dismissed a petition, which challenged VIP break dar to a section of the devotee and described the facility being provided by the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) as illegal, unconstitutional, arbitrary and violative of Articles 14, 25 and 26 of the Constitution.
The bench, comprising of Acting Chief Justice C Praveen Kumar and Justice M Satyanarayana Murthy, in its 49-page judgement delivered on August 21, observed that categorisation of devotees into L1, L2 and L3 was not violative of Article 14 and 25 of the Constitution of India.
The bench, however, observed that the break darshan for protocol and VIP devotees should be granted to VIPs and VVIPs as mentioned in the Blue Book and Yellow Book published by the Department of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs.
In its judgment, the bench also observed that this practice (break darshan) is sanctioned by ‘Dittam’ which the temple authorities follow till date. The petition was filed by Venkata Subba Rao Jagarlamudi, a native of Prakasam district, in March against the L1, L2 and L3 break darshans. The court observed that the writ petition is devoid of any merits and dismissed it.