Kapaleeswarar temple idol case: Bench irked as officials say docus destroyed

A special division bench of Justice R Mahadevan and P D Audikesavulu on going through a report submitted by the Government advocate that the files relating to the idol were destroyed, said, “This almost establishes the allegation by the petitioner that the idol has been stolen and replaced with a different one.”

Warning of taking to task all the concerned HR&CE officials if it is established that the documents have been destroyed, the bench also sought from IG Pon Manickavel as to whether any detail was available with him about the destruction of files regards the idol. To this, while the IG noted that there was information that certain staff had destroyed the file on a weekend, the bench directed him to hold a probe and submit a report after a week.

The petitioner Rangarajan Narasimhan had contended that the idol of a peacock holding a flower in its beak at the Kapaleeswarar temple was missing for long and now, in its place an idol of the bird holding a snake in its beak, which was against the agamas was placed.

Based on this, he also sought for a direction to conduct a ‘Kumbhabishekam’ by installing a new idol of peacock of the temple. He had also sought for the removal of the present trustees and the officials and form a committee under a retired high court judge with agama experts for its administration.