CHENNAI: A PIL petition has been filed in the Madras High Court seeking a direction for a CBI probe into the alleged barbaric and obscene activities of the Desikas attached to Sri Varadaraja Perumal Swamy temple in Kancheepuram on May 28, when the birthday of Nammalwar, the secondary deity in the temple, was celebrated. In his PIL, S Sridharan of Habibullah Road in T Nagar alleged that the Commissioner of Hindu Religious & Charitable Endowment department, under whose control the temple comes, was acting in a biased manner, thereby denying the rights of the followers of Nammalwar, who originally belonged to the most backward Velala community.
The Commissioner denied the right of the Velala community to render the Dravida Vedam to Lord Varadarajan on the occasion of Nammalwar’s birthday celebrations at the temple on May 28 last.
The usual practice is that Lord Varadarajan, after being taken out in a procession, would enter the sanctum sanctorum of Nammalwar and listen to the renderings of the followers for four hours and perform ‘satrumurai’ to Nammalwar before leaving the premises.
But this procedure was not followed on that day. Following a direction from the Commissioner, the Maniayakarar declared the end of the event abruptly. Some Desikas, more particularly one Vijayaraghavan, removed their dhoties and thereby insulted both Lords. This was telecast live in the electronic media.
Petitioner prayed for a direction to the CBI to probe the matter and punish the culprits.
The other prayer was for a directive to the Commissioner to complete the ritual by arranging for the visit of Lord Varadarajan to Nammalwar sannidhi, listen to the renderings of Nammalwar and perform the satrumurai, again.The PIL petition came up before the first bench of Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justic P T Asha on Monday. The bench posted the matter before the bench headed by Justice M M Sundresh for hearing on Tuesday.