MYSURU: Pramoda Devi Wadiyar of the erstwhile royal family of Mysore on Monday termed the enactment of Shree Chamundeshwari Kshetra Development Authority Act, 2024, by the state government as unconstitutional. Her statement comes in view of the High Court of Karnataka issuing a stay order on the formation of the authority under the Act.
She told reporters here that Chamundeshwari Devi is the presiding deity of the erstwhile royal family and Shree Chamundeshwari Temple and other temples atop the Chamundi Hills are the private properties of the family. The government, however, enacted Shree Chamundeshwari Kshetra Development Authority Act, 2024, to take over the ownership, control and management of the temples in the guise of development and maintenance of Shree Chamundeshwari Kshetra. “After this, we challenged the constitutional validity of the Act and the high court issued a stay order on the formation of the authority,” she said. Thus, the Act is constitutionally invalid, she added.
In 1972, the Government of India sent a list of royal families’ private properties to the respective state governments, and the Karnataka government approved this list in 1974. “The list includes Shree Chamundeshwari Temple, its associated buildings, the Rajendra Vilas Palace, gardens, Mahabaleshwar temple, and Uttanahalli temple,” she said.
“The government cannot be permitted to commercially exploit the temples at the cost of their divinity and religious sanctity,” she said. Alleging that all governments treated the erstwhile royal family as an enemy, she said, “When several politicians are claiming compensation for the land they lost under the land to land compensation scheme, why are our claims not considered?”
Responding to a question whether her son Yaduveer Krishnadatta Chamaraja Wadiyar, Mysuru-Kodagu MP, would exert pressure to resolve such cases related the erstwhile royal family, she said, “We will take legal action.”