Chennai: A Division Bench of the Madras High Court on Wednesday observed why not the court pass an order to hold the salary of officers who act as mere spectators when someone is encroaching and making constructions on temple lands owned by the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments department.

“The HR&CE officials who did not take any action to prevent the illegal construction on the temple lands had forwarded the complaints to the HR&CE commissioner only after the construction works are finished. Why the government should not stop the salary payments to those erring officials for at least a year,” the bench, consisting of Justice R Mahadevan and Justice PD Audikesavalu observed.

Since the government advocate Arun Natarajan submitted that the government is taking steps to evict encroachments from the temple lands, judges expressed their dissatisfaction observing that the officials are not acting on time.

It was a case of two litigants named R Venkatraman and A Radhakrishnan seeking directions to remove encroachments from temple lands in Pandanallur, Thanjavur district, and Erode district respectively.

The bench further directed the HR&CE to submit the details of the officers who failed to restrain the encroachers from erecting buildings on the occupied lands.

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