On September 3, several media houses reported that a 5,000-year-old tradition would be broken on Radhashtmi at Radha Rani Mandir as a widowed woman was all set to become priest of the Temple. As per the traditions of the Temple, only male priests of the Goswami community can serve as a priest at the Radha Rani temple, and the practice has been going on for over 5,000 years.
The controversy around the position of sevadar in Temple
As per the reports, there are three groups or Toks that take care of the temple proceedings and belong to the Goswami community on a rotation basis. Harbans Lal Goswami Ji was to take over the temple proceedings as sevadar from April 27 to October 20 this year. However, he passed away without an heir. Taking circumstances into consideration, his brother’s grandson Rasbehari Goswami got appointed as sevadar. Advocate Ashutosh Sharma who represented Rasbehari Goswami in the court, gave inputs for this report.
However, a woman identified as Maya Devi came forward and claimed she was the widow of Harbans Lal Goswami, so she should be given charge of the Temple. She filed a plea in the lower court, and based on the documents that the Rasbehari group alleged were fake, she got orders to take over the temple administration. As the local administration got orders from the court, they had to take away the charge from Rasbihari Goswami and give it to Maya Devi.
Rasbehari Goswami filed a petition at the district court, where the orders passed by the civil judge were overturned. Further pleas were filed in High Court to take control of the temple administration by the Rasbehari group, but there were delays in the process. Based on the higher courts, a plea was filed in civil court to pass orders to get possession of the temple before Radha Ashtami, but the court, instead of passing the order on September 2, as required by the High Court, set a date for September 8 for hearing.
The Rasbehari group filed an urgent petition in the Allahabad High Court on September 3, and the hearing commenced despite Saturday being a holiday considering the importance of Radha Ashtami. After hearing the arguments, the single-judge bench of the High Court comprising Justice Vivek Chaudhary set the date to September 12 but did not give immediate relief to the petitioner.
The order, however, became the source of misinterpretation and several news portals published that a woman priest would perform Pooja on Radha Ashtami. OpIndia, in a detailed conversation with Advocate Ashutosh Sharma, found out that Maya Devi did not perform Pooja on Radha Asthami, but members of the Goswami community did so as per the traditions.
Conversation of Advocate Ashutosh with OpIndia
Advocate Ashutosh told OpIndia that Maya Devi does not belong to the Goswami community, and the documents she submitted in her original plea based on which she took over the post of sevadar were allegedly forged. He said when petitions were filed in higher courts, it was observed by the court that the appointment of Maya Devi on the post of sevadar was wrong, and the judgment of the lower court was nullified.
However, because of the legalities of the matter, the Rasbehari group could not take control of the temple proceedings. When OpIndia asked if they had approached local and state administration for support, Advocate Ashutosh said, “We did contact everyone, but in the lack of proper orders from the court, the administration was unable to help. This is why we kept running from pillar to post in courts to get the orders as per the law and take over the temple proceedings.” He further said Maya Devi was not even the wife of Harbans Lal Goswami, so the whole case was based on forged documents. Advocate Ashutosh is close to the Goswami community that manages Pooja, Archana at the Temple.
When asked if Maya Devi performed Pooja at the temple on Radha Ashtami, he said, “This is where all the media houses went wrong and misinterpreted the orders. The High Court did not give Maya Devi the right to be Sevadar on such auspicious occasions. On the contrary, the court observed we were right. However, the court restrained itself from passing any orders in our favour as there was only one day left in the festival, and the preparations were completed at the temple.” The 5000-year-old tradition was not broken.
He further added, “Keeping in mind the recent stampede case in the temple on Janmashtami, the court said interim relief to Rasbihari Goswami was not possible as a change in administration would have caused havoc in the temple premises. Now coming to the Pooja on Radha Ashtami, the media houses were completely wrong. They did not even approach anyone known about the matter to understand what was happening. The Pooja was performed by the priests of the Goswami community as it per the traditions. It does not matter if those priests belonged to Maya Devi’s group or our group. The thing that matters is it was done by male priests of Goswami community and not by Maya Devi as the news reports suggested.”
Advocate Ashutosh added the court patiently listened to their arguments on Saturday and issued notice to Maya Devi to be present in the court for the hearing on September 12. “We have full faith in the judiciary.”
Local and state administration will take action based on orders by the court
It has to be noted that the state government has no role in giving charge to Maya Devi as it was ordered by the lower court. Once the judgment of the High Court comes, the administration will take action according to the law. However, the Rasbehari group was not pleased with the local administration’s approach toward them when they sat on a hunger strike to take control of the temple proceedings. There was lathi charge on Rasbehari and his followers on August 27 that led to further controversy.
