Tamil Nadu Government’s efforts to meddle with the encroached lands measuring thousands of acres belonging to the temples in the State administered by the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Department came to a nought on
Friday as the Madras High Court stayed the Government Order issued on August 30 in this regard.
A Bench consisting of Justices M Sathyanarayana and N Seshasayee stayed the sections of the GO which had empowered the State to buy the encroached land from the encroachers and sell it back to them with pattas.
The contention of the petitioner T R Ramesh was that the GO was issued by the Government to circumvent the court order of February 2018 y which it had asked the HR&CE Department to furnish the details of more than 50,000 acres of prime land owned by the temples that had vanished.
Though the Court had asked the HR&CE Dept to furnish the details in six months, nothing has come out even after 18 months. Meanwhile the misappropriation of the temple lands continued with the active connivance of the officials of the HR& CE Department, pointed out Ramesh, president, Temple Worshippers Society , the main petitioner.
In Friday’s order the judges asked the Department to collect the details of the encroached lands and the action taken report to retrieve the same rom the encroachers.
“While staying the section of the GO in the interim
verdict, the bench directed the Commissioner HR& CE to file a detailed report regarding Hindu temple lands , extent, encroachments and the steps taken to clear the encroachments. We will soon see skeletons tumbling down from the cupboards o the Government,” said Ramesh.
It may be noted that the HR&CE Department is already in the eye of a controversy regarding the thefts of nearly 5,000 antique temple idols from the temples under its jurisdiction.