Puri: A local civil court ordered the district administration and Puri municipality to remove the Samadhi of former Chief Minister Biju Patnaik from Swargadwar here within three months.
Hearing a petition regarding unlawful constructions at the holy burial ground on December 27 last year, the civil court asked collector Aravind Agrawal and the civic body for permanent injunction of construction of samadhis, statues, pandals inside the premises of Swargadwara.
Earlier, the district administration had constructed a ‘samadhisthal’ for Biju Patnaik which covered a large portion of the burial ground. Way back in 1999, a case was filed in the civil court by Ramesh Prasad Sinha, Bikash Kumar Satpathy and two other lawyers opposing the structure at Swargadwara.
The sacred crematorium witnesses a large footfall as people from across and outside the state to perform last rites of their relatives. It is believed that a person cremated here attains moksha.