CHENNAI: A division bench of Madras High Court on Monday set aside an order of a single judge imposing a cost of Rs.1 lakh on the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments department commissioner for not implementing the court’s direction to remove encroachments from an HR & CE temple in Choolai, Chennai.

The bench comprising Justice PN Prakash and Justice RMT Teekaa Raman passed the orders on hearing the appeal filed by HR and CE commissioner J Kumaragurubaran. The petitioner submitted that the single judge has erroneously passed the order of imposing a penalty on him while he was not even arrayed as a respondent in the original petition.

Additional Advocate General J Ravindran appearing for HR and CE submitted that the single judge arrayed the commissioner only while passing the orders.

Recently, Justice Anita Sumanth imposed Rs 1 lakh on the HR and CE commissioner and Rs 50,000 on HR and CE’s Joint Commissioner and Assistant Commissioner each for not adhering to the June 2021 order of HC to retrieve the lands of Arulmigu Choolai Chokkavel Subramnaiyar temple and Arulmigu Angalaparameswari Kasi Viswanathar Temple, Choolai.

The single judge passed the order on a contempt petition filed by B Sukumar, a resident of Choolai who alleged that the petitioners failed to recover the temple land as per the June 2021 order of the HC.

It could be recalled that in August, a division bench of Justice S Vaidyanathan and Justice AD Jagadish Chandira stayed the order of the single judge.

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