CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has stated that any person who is interested in a temple can move the court for protecting the properties of the temple and the court is bound to protect the interest of the deity.
The court made the observation while dismissing the petitions filed by A A Fathima Nachia challenging a January 2025 order in an execution petition for recovery of the leased properties belonging to Channamalleeswarar and Channa Kesavaraperumal Devasthanam in Chennai from her possession.
“It is a settled principle that any person, who is interested in the temple, is entitled to initiate law into motion and the court itself, as parens patriae, is bound to protect the interest of the idol,” said Justice A D Jagadish Chandira in a recent order.
The property was originally leased out to her husband Mohammed Iqbal. The temple moved a petition in the civil court against him in 1994 and a decree was passed in 2000 for taking back the possession and recovering the rental arrears. He moved appeals against the decree and after his death, his wife Nachia pursued the litigation.
She questioned the legality of the managing trustee of the temple, instead of the HR&CE department, filing the petitions on behalf of the temple for executing the decree passed in 2025 in connection with a 2000 ex-parte order for recovery of the property.
The judge remarked that the petitioner has been protracting the litigation merely on some technicalities by filing many frivolous applications one after another in order to see the dispute go unresolved.
Disapproving of her contention that the execution petition was barred by limitation since it was filed after a long delay and the managing trustee does not have the locus standi, the judge held that it may not be appropriate to deny the respondent-temple the benefit of exemption from the ambit of the Limitation Act under Section 109 of the HR&CE Act in recovering the possession of temple properties and arrears of rent, merely on some delay in executing the decree.