NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday sought a response from the Tamil Nadu government within four weeks on the steps it proposes to take on the appointment of the Arangavalar Committee (trustee committee) for all Hindu temples in the state.
The state government told the court that it had sought applications for making appointments to trustee committees from 31,000 temples and that such panels were set up for over 7,500 temples only as many were yet to respond.
“You please file an affidavit as to what you (Tamil Nadu State government) propose to do,” a two-judge bench comprising Justices MM Sundresh and Justice Aravind Kumar told the state government’s counsel. The bench granted four weeks’ time to the state government to file the affidavit and listed the plea of the petitioner, the Hindu Dharma Parishad, for February 2025.
The SC was hearing a plea filed by the Hindu Dharma Parishad against the Madras High Court judgment of December 9, 2021, when Justice Pushpa Sathyanarayana dismissed an appeal for the appointment of Arangavalar Committees for all Hindu temples in the state.
The plea claimed that several old temples among the nearly 40,000 temples in the state were getting damaged due to non-maintenance.