'How does it matter': Calcutta High Court on Hindu group's plea on naming lioness 'Sita'

‘How does it matter’: Calcutta High Court on Hindu group’s plea on naming lioness ‘Sita’

The Calcutta High Court, hearing a plea by the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) against the naming of a lioness at a safari as ‘Sita’, said the naming could be done out of one’s affection and asked why it mattered.

The VHP had approached the court challenging the West Bengal forest department’s move to allegedly keep a lion named ‘Akbar’ alongside a lioness named ‘Sita’ in the same enclosure at Siliguri’s Safari Park.

“How does it matter at all? Maybe it may be named out of affection. You might think it is slander, but for some it would be out of affection. What is the difficulty if a lioness is named Sita?” a single bench of Justice Saugata Bhattacharya said.Â

“It depends on the mental orientation of the person (who named the lioness),” the judge said.

The VHP said naming a lioness ‘Sita’ had hurt the religious sentiments of Hindus and also infringed their right to religion.

“Tomorrow, a donkey may be named after some deity… We worship Sita. Let her be in the temple, not the jungle,” the advocate representing the VHP said.

Justice Saugata Bhattacharya also observed that the lion at the foot of goddess Durga was worshipped by everyone.

“Don’t you find a lion at the feet of goddess Durga? Isn’t the lion worshipped by all of us during Durga Puja?” the court said.

The VHP’s counsel said the lion was at the feet of Goddess Durga to keep evil at bay from all sides, and it was not given any name.

“No, we do not worship a lion. We only worship the goddess. There isn’t any mantra for worshipping a lion,” the VHP counsel said, as per Bar and Bench.

However, Justice Saugata Bhattacharya replied, “But the lion is a part of the entire (Durga) Puja ceremony.”

The VHP also claimed that the two lions were brought into West Bengal from a zoo in Tripura and were named ‘Sita’ and ‘Akbar’ by the state authorities.

Additional Advocate General Debjyoti Choudhary told the court that the state didn’t give any names to the animals.Â

The High Court, however, asked the West Bengal government to submit on record whether it had given the names to the two lions and posted the matter for Thursday.

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