The Kerala High Court on Thursday termed as "very very serious" the "VIP darshan" provided to actor Dileep at the Lord Ayyappa shrine in Sabarimala recently and said that it resulted in pilgrims being "virtually blocked" from getting darshan of the deity for several minutes. A bench of Justices Anil K Narendra and Muralee Krishna S said it was "not a question of two minutes" when the first two rows in front of the 'Sopanam' were "choked" for several minutes to allow the actor to get darshan.

"What is the privilege such persons are having?" the court asked and directed the Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) and the Chief Police Coordinator to ensure such things do not happen in future. The observations and direction of the bench came after perusing the CCTV footage of the incident which occurred on December 5 and the video was also shown in the open court.