NAGAPATTINAM: Tamil Nadu Waqf Board took over the administration of Nagore Dargah on Friday, after the Madras High Court relieved its administrators who abused their positions. The court took suo motu cognisance of the abuse of position by K Allaudin and SF Akbar, whom it had appointed to manage the affairs of dargah five years ago.
The court relieved the two of their duties and directed the Tamil Nadu Waqf Board to take over the administration of the dargah. On being relieved of the responsibilities, one of the administrators sent a mail to Tamil Nadu Waqf Board on Thursday that he and Akbar would not continue the administration but did not express willingness to handover the charge, sources said.
The Board, however, decided that it should take up the administration. On Friday, the Board sealed the office of the two administrators in the dargah. The Board’s Chief Executive Officer, D Faritha Banu, assumed charge to manage the affairs of the dargah. The court’s direction came after a writ petition by the accused backfired. The court learned from their petition regarding a trustee’s participation in the recently-concluded Urs festival at the dargah. The Board rejected it in December.
The ‘ad hoc board’ comprising Allaudin and Akbar, appealed to the HC on January 4. In a twist of events, the Bench of Chief Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari and Justice D Bharatha Chakravarthy found that the administrators had filed the plea using dargah’s funds. Allaudin and Akbar were appointed by court in February 2017 to an ‘ad hoc Board of administrators’ to run affairs of dargah for four months. However, they had been continuing for five years.