Govt stay plea on order for removal of Biju Samadhi rejected

Puri: A lower court on Thursday set aside the petition of district administration seeking stay on its earlier order to remove Biju Samadhi from Swargadwar, but accepted the plea to review the case. The local court has directed petitioners to depose before it.

Hearing a petition regarding unlawful constructions at the holy burial ground on December 27 last year, the civil court had 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.