Odisha High Court issues notice on Ratna Bhandar

Cuttack: Hearing a petition filed by senior BJP leader Samir Mohanty seeking the reopening of Ratna Bhandar of Lord Jagannath in Puri, the Orissa High Court on Wednesday issued notices to four persons.

Notices have been served on Srimandir Managing Committee Chairman Dibyasingha Deb, Shree Jagannath Temple Administration’s Chief Administrator Ranjan Kumar Das, DG of Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and its Superintendent. The court posted the next hearing in the matter to August 7.

Mohanty, in his petition, had said that the State government was not taking any steps to reopen the Ratna Bhandar on the premises of the 12th century shrine despite the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and Puri’s titular king Dibyasingha Deb expressing concern over the dilapidated condition of the treasury.

Mohanty had sought the High Court’s intervention in directing the BJD government to reopen the Ratna Bhandar to carry out necessary repair work and make a fresh inventory of ornaments of the deities stored there for decades.

Though a judicial commission was set up to probe into the Ratna Bhandar missing key episode, the State government was yet to table the report in the Assembly, Mohanty pointed out in his petition. The Gajapati Maharaja had recently told reporters that the Ratna Bhandar was in bad shape as cracks had developed in its inner wall and rainwater was seeping through it.

The Ratna Bhandar was last opened in April 2018. A 16-member team, including experts of the ASI, had entered the outer chamber but could not go to the inner chamber as its key was missing. They inspected the structure from a distance and reported that its condition was weak.