Kerala - Kochi

Crowd management: directive to TDB

Kochi: A Division Bench of the Kerala High Court on Friday directed the Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) to file its response to a writ petition seeking to introduce a proper crowd management system at Sabarimala.

The Bench comprising Justice P.R. Raman and Justice C.T. Ravikumar while issuing the directive also ordered the board to supply sufficient drinking water to devotees trekking to Sabarimala.

The petition seeking to introduce a crowd management system was filed by K.N. Sreekumar of Ettumanoor. When the petition came up, counsel for the petitioner S. Krishnamoorthy pointed out that the present crowd management by the police was a total failure.

The police were keeping vigil only from Saramkuthy to the Sannidhanam. In fact, the police were treating the devotees as cattle. Though the high power commission and the Devaswom Commissioner were present at Sabarimala, they did not care about crowd management.

Even sufficient drinking water was not supplied to devotees walking up the trekking path. Counsel argued that a directive be issued to the board to partially divert the queue for ‘darshan’ through Chandranandan Road.

He also sought to allow entry of devotees into the temple through the main door of the Balikalpura so that the blockade before the Pathinettampady could be avoided.

Justice C.N. Ramachandran Nair on Friday held that an open terrace with a roof did not become part of the plinth area of residential building and therefore, the authorities could not levy building tax for the area.

The court, while disposing a building tax case, said that the rooftop area could not be treated as part of the residential building as it was unfit for residential purposes.

The judge, however, made it clear that if the open space on the terrace was enclosed with bricks and grills and walls, such enclosed area would be part of the residential area for the assessment of building tax.

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