The Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR&CE) Department has informed the Madras High Court of having retrieved from encroachers 5,513.64 acres of temple land; 946.029 grounds of vacant sites, 200.126 grounds of buildings and 146.0945 grounds of temple tanks worth ₹5,132.82 crore from May 7, 2021 (when the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam government assumed power) to August 20, 2023.
In a counter affidavit filed before a Special Division Bench of Justices R. Mahadevan and P.D. Audikesavalu, the HR&CE Department said legal action had been initiated against 11,658 encroachers. It also said, the 7,398 temples had filed appeals before the competent authority for change of name in the computer Chitta with respect to 41,493.35 acres of lands and that orders had been passed on 1,676 appeal petitions covering 10,545.22 acres.
The counter had been filed, through Special Government Pleader N.R.R. Arun Natarajan, in response to a public interest litigation petition filed by temple activist T.R. Ramesh who accused the HR&CE officials of misfeasance and malfeasance. Denying all his charges, the department said so far property registers of as many as 10,540 temples had been uploaded on its website and that the department was working tirelessly to protect the properties of religious institutions.
“There is no need to prosecute this department official [sic] since they are not criminals. The averment of misappropriating temple property is purely a vague one and no specific complaint has been made by the petitioner,” the counter read and stated that the lands of religious institutions were being reconciled with the Tamil Nilam database of the Revenue Department. So far 5.90 lakh acres of land had tallied with the database.
It went on to state that 3.32 lakh properties fully matched with the title documents such as patta, chitta and adangal and the details had been uploaded on the department website. The details of 2.05 lakh properties matched partially with the database and therefore 26,334 appeals had been filed in that regard, the department said that reconciliation of temple records with the revenue records was being carried out diligently.
The HR&CE Department also denied the allegation of having used temple funds to purchase luxury cars. “Instructions were given to purchase vehicles only for the use of temple authorities and not for the use of department officials. Vehicles are required to attend important works such as monitoring of assets, meeting of donors, festival related works and court related works. Only senior grade institutions were issued with the instructions,” it said.
Pointing out that Section 97 of the HR&CE Act, 1959 provides for creation of a Common Good Fund (CGF) by pooling in voluntary contribution from the surplus funds of revenue rich temples, the department said, there was no deviation in procedure in the collection or use of such fund. “The contribution to the CGF is well in accordance with the Act and not arbitrary,” it said and denied the charge of criminal misuse of the fund.
The department further said, the audit wing of the department had been converted into a Directorate and brought under the control of the Finance Department for better administration and transparency. The Directorate of Audit was now headed by an IAS official from the office of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) and it was competent enough to look into various aspects of financial transactions of religious institutions, it added.
The Division Bench was also told that committees for appointment of non-hereditary trustees to all temples had been constituted in all 38 revenue districts and so far, such trustees had been appointed in 1,683 temples. The balance would be completed in due course. Till then, Fit Persons had been appointed to administer the temples, the department said.
