VIP break darshan will be abolished: TTD to High Court

Amaravati: The division bench of the Andhra Pradesh High Court on Monday heard the arguments in a public interest litigation petition, seeking direction to the Andhra Pradesh government to do away with VIP break darshan L1, L2 and L3 at Tirumala.

It may be recalled that a petition against VIP break darshan was filed in March this year and counsel representing the petitioner Umesh Chandra PVG submitted his arguments exhaustively in June.The bench on Monday asked the government if it was filing the counter.

The standing counsel representing TTD informed the bench that VIP break darshan would be abolished and the TTD Chairman had made statement to this effect recently.

However, the counsel appearing for the petitioner submitted to the court that TTD Board had not been constituted yet and a unilateral statement by Chairman without the consent of the board would not pass the muster of legal scrutiny.

Also, the counsel informed the court that the TTD is contemplating changing the nomenclature of the VIP break darshan and therefore the new darshan should not possess the character of the L1, L2 and L3, the counsel said. He further argued that the government should submit an affidavit to that effect.

After hearing the arguments at length, the bench directed the counsel representing TTD to file an affidavit along with a detailed counter by Thursday and informed the counsel that it would hear him before passing orders in the matter.The court posted the matter to Thursday for further hearing.