MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court sought a written or oral response from parties opposing Adi Dravidars from taking part in the mandagapadi ritual during the Aadi festival at Kamakshi Amman Temple in Pudukkottai on Thursday regarding whether the community members could be allowed to take part on the ninth day of the event.
Previously, the court had directed the tahsildar and revenue officials to conduct a peace committee meeting to discuss involving the Adi Dravidars on the first or tenth day of the mandagapadi event.
A division bench of Justices R Suresh Kumar and G Arul Murugan said the government pleader submitted that a meeting was conducted on July 16 where both Adi Dravidars and members of other communities took part.
The Adi Dravidars were willing to perform the mandagapadi on their own on the first or tenth day. As the other communities were not willing to permit this, the issue could not be resolved.
The court said that the ceremony would last 10 days and various communities would perform mandagapadi. The court observed that there would be a kappu tying event on the first day and a common function with cultural programmes on the tenth day.
“The Adi Dravidars said that on the first day, 11 individual families would be performing mandagapadi, and on the tenth day, 12 individual families would perform,” the court observed.
The court said there would be a car festival on the ninth day along with the mandagapadi event, in which the Adi Dravidars are not allowed to participate.
The counsel appearing for the Adi Dravidars suggested that on the ninth day, the mandagapadi event would be over in the morning and no function would be carried out afterwards. If the Adi Dravidars were permitted to perform their mandagapadi on the evening of the ninth day, they would be able to perform pooja and worship the god to their satisfaction.
However, the counsel appearing for the other communities sought time till July 22. As the ninth day of the temple event falls on July 29, the Court adjourned the hearing to July 22.