NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday sought a response from the Tamil Nadu government and Commissioner, Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Department, Tamil Nadu (“Commissioner”) in a petition to restrain the state and commissioner from appointing government servants in the administration of temples.
A bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and Hima Kohli asked the petitioner, TN Ramesh to file an affidavit giving statistics of the temples where there are no trustees and temples where government has appointed trustees under the Tamil Nadu Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Act, 1959 (1959 Act). The bench also asked the state and the commissioner to file its response within 3 weeks. The court’s order came in a petition which was filed by TN Ramesh challenging Madras HC’s February 21, 2022 ruling of rejecting his petition where he had also sought to revert all the government employees working for administration of the non-hereditary temples. Senior Advocate CS Vaidyanathan and Advocates Sai Dipak and Shyamohan appeared for TN Ramesh.
Before the HC, he had also prayed for refunding the salaries, allowances and other perquisites that were paid to them from the temple funds. HC had rejected the petition while observing that no illegality was found in the action of transferring Government servants for administration of the temple “taking into consideration the peculiar circumstances”.
“If we go hyper-technically, employees in the temple can be appointed only by the trustees and in the absence of trustees, no employee could have been appointed in any of the temples, thereby creating chaos in the administration of the temples,” the HC had also observed.
Before the SC, it was argued that authorities under the 1950 act had not appointed trustees in about 19,000 non-hereditary temples in the State for more than eleven years. It was further asserted that creating posts in the temples by the Commissioner and state would alter the temples' characters. “Commissioner by taking undue advantage had acted in connivance with the state government and had deputed Government servants (who do not possess requisite qualifications) without any authority or jurisdiction to do so, in addition to the Executive Officers already appointed for administration of these temples, for long periods.
Stats sought on temples running without trusts
A bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and Hima Kohli asked the petitioner, TN Ramesh to file an affidavit giving statistics of the temples where there are no trustees and temples where government has appointed trustees under the Tamil Nadu Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Act, 1959 (1959 Act)
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