Recover Porur temple lands, HC tells HR&CE, State govt

CHENNAI: A vacation bench of the Madras High Court directed the State government and the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR&CE) Department to recover the lands belonging to Porur Arulmigu Ramanatheeswarar temple in Chennai.

The bench comprising Justice MS Ramesh and Justice Mohammed Shaffiq issued the direction on disposing of a petition filed by A Radhakrishnan, founder of Thiruthondar Sabai, who prayed for a direction to the State government and HR&CE Department to consider his representations about the illegal encroachments on the lands and rental/lease arrears for properties of Ramanatheeswarar temple, and to secure and safeguard all those properties.

“On September 3, 2014, I made a representation to the HR&CE Commissioner stating that several lands of the Ramanatheeswarar temple were unlawfully grabbed and also encumbered by registering fraudulent documents with the Registration Department. The illegal act caused a huge loss to the temple which cannot be compensated by any means,” Radhakrishnan said in his petition. He also claimed that he had brought to the notice of the HR&CE Commissioner that people who are occupying temple property in the name of lease have to pay huge amounts of arrears and rental dues to the temple.

“The illegal act of people who are occupying the temple lands and properties in the name of the lease is liable to be punished under Sections 420 and 468 of the IPC. As no action was taken to safeguard the temple properties, I made another representation on May 26, to all concerned departments to recover the temple properties,” the petitioner added.

Recording these submissions, the bench directed the State and HR&CE to consider his representations for taking actions to secure and safeguard the temple lands.

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