Madras High Court seeks joint action by GCC, depts to retrieve temple land

The Madras High Court directed the State government to ensure coordination between the Home, Revenue and Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowment departments, and Greater Chennai Corporation to recover properties of Arulmighu Kodandaramar Temple in Nandambakkam.

Justice SM Subramaniam issued the direction after hearing a plea by A Radhakrishnan, a devotee of the temple, who prayed for a direction to the State government to take appropriate steps to secure and safeguard the properties of Kodandaramar temple and also issue direction to ensure the better administration of the temple to avoid any loss in future.

The judge pointed out that the effort to recover the properties of temples required verification of revenue records, documents and the claims of several parties. “Thus, the enquiry is to be conducted in respect of those properties, revenue records in original must be verified with the assistance of the revenue authorities and the persons who are claiming the ownership or title,” the court said.

The court then directed the HR&CE, police, revenue and city Corporation to convene a meeting of the officials concerned within six weeks so as to have a discussion with reference to the mode of actions to be initiated to recover those properties.

The petitioner had submitted that about 150 acres of land belonging to Kodandaramar temple were encroached by creating documents in a fraudulent manner and attempting to grab the temple properties.

Special government pleader T Chandrasekaran submitted that coordination was required for the purpose of initiation of further action, and added that the authorities were taking steps to conduct an enquiry, verify revenue records and initiate all appropriate actions to restore temple properties.