Supreme Court Directs Tamil Nadu To File Status Report On Appointment of Trustee Committees For Temples

The Supreme Court on Monday directed the State of Tamil Nadu to file a report before the court within four weeks time pointing out the status of appointment of trustee committees for the temples in the state as per the Tamil Nadu Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Act, 1959. 

The bench of Justices AS Bopanna and Hima Kohli passed the above order while hearing a Special Leave Petition seeking appointment of Arangavalar Committee (Trustee Committee) headed by a Retired Judge in all Hindu Temples.

The State said in its counter affidavit that there are over 38,000 temples in the state and only 578 have annual income of over Rs 10 lakhs. The State further said that it was impossible to have a committee headed by a retired judges for all the temples in the state.

Senior Advocate Jaideep Gupta appearing for the State of Tamil Nadu apprised the court of the developments that have taken place in the appointments and constitution of the committees.

Referring to the impugned judgment passed by the Madras High Court, Gupta said, “Since there was a statutory provision in place therefore no interference was called for. We have prepared a short note of the exact position today. The process is on and effectively we expect the process to complete within the next 6 months.”

Gupta further informed the court that, “First of all there is a committee which is a central committee. Then there are district level committees. 10 of the most important district committees have already come into place. These are where the major temples are there”

At this point, Counsel appearing for the petitioner submitted, “High Court had given the order in 2021. Till today they have appointed trustees in only 33 temples. They have themselves agreed that there are around 40,000 temples in the state.” “Government cannot provide one lac staff for maintaining the temples?” ,he asked.

Justice Hima Kohli asked Gupta, “In these two years…effectively one year after the impugned judgment, what headway did you make? Just for us to know that you’re on track and your track is a fast track.”

Gupta replied , “There is an assurance in our counter that we expect to complete the process in 6 months.”

Justice Kohli again inquired, “What did you do in last one year?”

Gupta replied, “We put into place the district and the central committees.”

Justice Kohli then remarked, “You took one year to do that? 10 districts. It took one year to just constitute committees?”

Gupta replied to that and said, “But these are the most important districts. They are saying 40 thousand but most of them are very small temples.”

On being asked the figures for the prominent temples in the state, Gupta said that he does not have the figures ready at present.

Justice Kohli then inquired, “Your affidavit states that so far this process has been commenced for 1045 temples across the state. How did you get this figure? Are these 1045 the bigger ones? Give us an indication which way you are going. Which are the larger ones and how many are there? Show us?”

Gupta replied and said, “Larger ones are 578 above 10 lacs. We have shown that.”

Justice Kohli then remarked, “So shall we assume that 1045 include those 578?”

Justice Bopanna then said, “Make an exercise of finding how many hereditary trustees are there and the other temples where only your representatives are to be appointed. This is for us to understand. Because there will be separate issues. What you’re saying is also right that you can’t get retired judges for all temples. But, at least the committee shall be in place. Which are the larger ones. Which are your focus. etc.”

Gupta replied and said, “Applications for appointment has been issued to close to 6000 temples. Committees are already in place.”

The Court then ordered, “List after four weeks to enable the respondents to bring on record information with regard to the number of temples where the process has been fully completed, the number of temples in which the process is underway, and also a list of temples for which the respondent may take some extra time to complete the process.”

Hindu Dharma Parishad, the petitioners in the SLP, had argued before the High Court that several Hindu Temples in Tamil Nadu were not maintained well and they were destroyed. 

The High Court bench of Justices Pushpa Sathyanarayana and P Velmurugan taking into consideration that there was a statutory provision under Tamil Nadu Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Act, 1959 had dismissed the writ petition.

Case Title: Hindu Dharma Parishad v. State of TN SLP(C) No. 2197/2022

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