New Delhi, April 20 -- The Supreme Court-appointed high-powered committee (HPC) overseeing the management of Mathura's Bankey Bihari temple has defended a series of sweeping reforms, led by the discontinuation of VIP darshan slips and a restructuring of temple timings, as necessary measures to ensure safety, fairness and orderly access for the surging number of devotees visiting the shrine. In a detailed status report filed before the Supreme Court, the committee asserted that the decision to scrap the VIP darshan system was taken unanimously and was aimed at ending preferential access that allowed a select few to bypass queues. The committee said that the practice was incompatible with equitable access to the deity and had to be removed as part of broader efforts to streamline crowd management and restore sanctity to the darshan process. The report was placed on record when the matter came up last week before a bench led by Chief Justice Surya Kant. Appearing for the committee, Uttar Pradesh's senior additional advocate general and senior counsel Sharan Dev Singh Thakur defended the reforms, maintaining that they fell squarely within the mandate given by the top court. The case is scheduled to be heard next on May 18. Alongside the removal of VIP access, the committee has significantly revised the temple's darshan schedule, advancing opening hours and extending public access windows in both summer and winter. The panel said that it has confined itself strictly to administrative and secular aspects of temple management....