No Entry For Photographers To Konark Sun Temple Without ASI Licence, Rules Orissa HC

Cuttack: The Orissa High Court on Monday ruled that only the photographers approved by the ASI would be allowed to do their business on the premises of Sun Temple at Konark in Odisha’s Puri district.

A division bench of the High Court comprising Chief Justice Chakradhar Sharan Singh and Justice Savitri Ratho announced the judgment by upholding the verdict of a single-judge bench earlier.

The single-judge bench had issued the verdict on January 5, 2022 after hearing a petition filed by 10  photographers who were issued permission by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) to take photographs in the 13th century shrine.

The petitioners had sought the HC’s intervention on the ground that unchecked photography by the unauthorised photographers at the Sun Temple was affecting their livelihood. Disposing of the petition, the court had ruled that only photographers having valid licence from the ASI would be allowed to operate on the temple’s premises.

Later, a group of 154 photographers filed a petition in the High Court challenging the verdict of the single-judge bench. They stated that the verdict would deprive them of their livelihood since they did not have requisite minimum qualification of Matriculation as per ASI norms.

The petitioners had appealed to the court to direct the ASI to consider a one-time exception to them with regard to the criterion of Matriculation as the minimum qualification for obtaining licence.

The ASI, in an affidavit, told the court that the one-time exception could not be provided to the 154 photographers as it had fixed the minimum qualification as part of a uniform policy for regulating photographers operating at the monuments throughout the country.

After hearing the petition of 154 photographers, the division bench of the High Court upheld the verdict of the single-judge HC bench and ruled that besides tourists, the photographers who have obtained licence from the ASI can enter the Sun Temple.