The Supreme Court will today take up a petition challenging the “VIP culture” at the Shri Mahakaleshwar temple in Ujjain, months after it criticised the practice of wealthy and influential devotees being granted special access to temples in violation of established customs.
A bench comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and justices R Mahadevan and Joymalya Bagchi is scheduled to hear a plea assailing the practice of allowing select devotees to enter the sanctum sanctorum (garbhagriha) for performing rituals, while denying the same access to ordinary devotees.
The petition, filed through advocate Vishnu Shankar Jain, challenges an August 28, 2025, judgment of the Madhya Pradesh high court, which dismissed a public interest litigation seeking equal access for all devotees to perform darshan and rituals inside the sanctum.
The matter gains significance in light of the Supreme Court’s observations in December last year, when a CJI-led bench came down heavily on temple administrations for permitting private pujas for affluent devotees during hours meant for the deity’s rest, calling such practices a violation of religious customs. The remarks were made while hearing a case relating to the Banke Bihari temple in Vrindavan, where the court noted that while temples were closed to the general public on the pretext of allowing rest to the deity, privileged devotees were being allowed entry for a price.
The current petition has been filed by Ujjain resident Darpan Awasthi, who claims that since 2023, the Shri Mahakaleshwar Temple administrative committee has restricted entry of general devotees into the garbhagriha for performing pooja and ‘jal abhishek’ (pouring holy water), while continuing to permit so-called VIPs to do so with special permission.
According to the plea, the temple’s managing committee, constituted under the Shri Mahakaleshwar Adhiniyam, 1982, has no statutory authority to create a separate class of “VIP” devotees or to grant preferential access to politicians, bureaucrats, moneyed persons or other influential individuals.
The petitioner has argued that such preferential treatment violates Article 14 of the Constitution, which guarantees equality before law, and Article 25, which protects the right to freely practise and profess religion. “Every citizen has a right to worship in the temple. The state or the administrative committee cannot make any distinction between VIPs and general devotees in the matter of entry into the sanctum sanctorum,” the petition states.
The plea also relies on resolutions passed by the temple’s managing committee in June, September and October 2023, obtained through the Right to Information Act, which permit “State Guests, VIPs and VVIPs” to enter the sanctum sanctorum under orders of the district collector or the committee chairman. These resolutions, the petitioner argues, institutionalise discrimination by formally excluding the general public while creating exceptions for influential persons.
Dismissing the PIL, the Madhya Pradesh High Court had held that there was no statutory prohibition on entry into the garbhagriha and that permission granted to VIPs was a matter of administrative discretion. The court observed that the term “VIP” is not defined in any statute or rules and that there is no permanent list or protocol identifying who qualifies as a VIP.
The high court further held that determining who should be treated as a VIP on a given day is within the discretion of the district collector and the temple administrator, and that such decisions could not be examined in a writ petition.
The upcoming hearing comes amid heightened scrutiny by the Supreme Court of temple administration and reforms, particularly at the Banke Bihari temple in Mathura. In August 2025, while staying the operation of the Uttar Pradesh Shri Bankey Bihari Ji Temple Trust Ordinance, the top court constituted a 14-member temple management committee, headed by former Allahabad high court judge justice Ashok Kumar to oversee the shrine’s functioning.
While agreeing to examine a fresh challenge to reforms introduced by the high-powered committee, the bench had observed in December that the deity had historically been “exploited” by practices that denied it rest, while affluent devotees managed to secure privileged darshan during restricted hours.