Retrieve 50K acres of temple lands, government told

The department was also directed to issue public notices to those in possession of the temple lands to voluntarily come forth and surrender the lands to avoid penal action. Justice R Mahadevan while passing orders on the alienation of several properties of Arulmigu Avudanayagi Ambal Sametha Desiganatha Swami Temple, directed the Revenue Secretary to instruct all Tahsildars and District Revenue Officers to take steps to alter the patta granted for the illegal transfer of temple land and refrain from issuing patta without getting written consent from the HR & CE department.

He also directed the HR&CE commissioner to constitute a committee for each territories/region and direct the members to visit all the temples in Tamil Nadu, identify the lands belonging to the temple and those in the hands of the encroachers and submit a report within six weeks.

The matter relates to the alienation of several properties of the temple in Sivagangai by the earlier trustee U Muthu Chettiar by way of agreements to third parties. These agreement holders subsequently approached the District Munisif Court and got orders in their favour. But when the present trustees asked the assistant commissioner, HR&CE, Paramakudi, to act on the earlier trustee and recover the lands, the official on referring to various court orders directed the present trustees to approach the Civil Court for retrieving the lands. Aggrieved by this, the trustees approached the Madras High Court Madurai Bench.

Setting aside the assistant commissioner’s order, Justice Mahadevan said, “This court finds that the collusion between Muthu Chettiar and others is patently evident and they have clearly acted against the interest of the temple.”

“Even though the management of the properties primarily vests with the trustees, upon perusal of various provisions of the Act and the rules framed there under, it is mandatory to obtain the sanction of the commissioner, HR & CE, before the sale is effected, as otherwise the sale would be void and no rights would accrue to the purchasers,” the judge added.