The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has restrained the registration of any document relating to 21 acres and 6 cents of land belonging to a religious trust associated with temples in Srirangam, until further orders, as reported in Dinamalar.
The order was passed on a public interest litigation petition filed by Nedungulam Subramanian of Madurai district.
According to the petitioner, the land at Thimmaraya Samudram in Srirangam belonged to a trust established to support religious and charitable activities connected with the Srirangam Ranganathaswamy Temple, Nachiyar Temple, Azhagiya Singar Temple, Gunaseelam Perumal Temple and Kodiyalam Gopalakrishna Swamy Temple.
The trust was created to fund activities including Brahmotsavam, mandakapadi, archana, religious processions and other public religious services. The income generated from the property was also required to be used for charitable purposes.
The petitioner alleged that the trustees and their successors had no personal, transferable or divisible rights over the property. He contended that the land therefore constituted trust property governed by the provisions of the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments law.
The petition alleged that certain individuals had treated the trust property as their family property. A partition deed was allegedly registered at the Srirangam Sub-Registrar Office, following which the land was divided into plots and approvals were obtained from the Tiruchirappalli Corporation and the Directorate of Town and Country Planning.
It was further alleged that a deed was executed in favour of a private company without obtaining the required permission under the HR&CE law. The company subsequently began developing residential plots and selling them to third parties.
The petitioner claimed that the company and others were attempting to appropriate property estimated to be worth around ₹600 crore. He argued that the Sub-Registrar had no authority to register documents concerning the religious trust property without prior approval from the HR&CE Commissioner.
The petitioner sought directions restraining the concerned individuals and others from transferring the property, creating encumbrances, entering into pre-registration transactions or creating third-party rights over the land. He also sought a declaration that documents already registered in relation to the property were invalid.
Hearing the matter, a division bench comprising Justices C.V. Karthikeyan and R. Sakthivel directed that no document relating to the entire property or any portion of it should be registered by the concerned Sub-Registrar until further orders.
The court also directed notices to be issued to the HR&CE Commissioner, Joint Commissioner and the Executive Officer of the Srirangam Ranganathaswamy Temple.
The matter has been posted for further hearing on 5 November 2026.
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