Summary:
"We have sought the permission and will abide by his decision," Agarwal said, adding that this suggestion was basically to improve crowd management in the temple and prevent any untoward incident owing to the heavy influx of pilgrims.The next date of hearing of the case has been fixed for Thursday. The administration had approached the court for permission of extending the darshan hours.Talking to media, priest Rajat Goswami supported the local administration's view point of extending darshan hours on grounds that the crowds have been increasing day by day and sometimes situation gets bad for women and children.He said, the crowds were small when the temple was constructed and rush was witnessed only on festival days. AGRA: Fissures have erupted within the committee of the Banke Bihari Temple over the issue of darshan timing at the shrine, a move initially initiated by the administration.While on Monday priest Gopesh Goswami had filed objections in the court of civil judge (Junior division) stating that the age-old traditions of the temple cannot be changed to meet the request of the administration to alter the timings on account of handling the rush of the devotees, a day later another group of the management has now claimed that the hours of darshan can be extended by one hour each, morning and evening, instead of the suggested two hours. Now, the crowds have gone up manifold and there is a need to extend the timing, he said.Vilas Goswami, who is part of the committee that manages morning shift (Rajbhog Darshan), said the administration should find a "middle" path so crowd management can be improved without altering the traditions of the temple.At present the Darshan timings are four hours in the morning (Rajbhog Darshan) and four hours in the evening (Shayanbhog Darshan) and the proposal is to increase the timings by two hours each.City magistrate, Basant Agarwal said that on the suggestion of senior superintendent of police (SSP), a permission for the extension of timings was sought from the administrator of the temple, who is the judicial magistrate..