CHENNAI: The First Bench of the Madras High Court directed the state to scrupulously follow the guidelines framed, while conducting car festivals in all the temples across Tamil Nadu.

The bench comprising Chief Justice SV Gangapurwala and Justice N Sathya Narayana Prasad heard a petition moved by A Radhakrishnan seeking to take action against the officials who failed to follow the guidelines while conducting temple car festivals. The petitioner submitted that on June 13, 2022, a car festival was celebrated in Kaliamman Temple, Pennagaram in Dharmapuri without following the guidelines issued by the state. Six devotees were severely injured and one of them died as the car toppled, said the petitioner.

The Superintendent of Police (SP) Dharmapuri submitted that since the car festival did not take place on the account of Covid-19 pandemic, the devotees felt there would be a wrath on their livelihood. Hence, the devotees had organised the festival with lot of excitement and enthusiasm in the year 2022, said the SP.

Despite heavy police deployment in the area to ensure peaceful conduct of the festival, the temple car toppled because of unforeseen circumstances, said the SP.

After the submissions, the bench directed that the guidelines should be adhered by all the officers concerned and to prevent untoward incident, precautionary measures are also required to be undertaken and disposed of the petition.