The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has stayed an order issued by the Karur District Collector lifting the ban on registration of 3,084.95 acres of inam lands belonging to four temples in Karur district, as reported in Hindu Tamil.
The lands, spread across 15 villages and covering 3,071 survey numbers, belong to four temples, including the Balasubramania Swamy Temple and the Kalyana Pasupatheeswarar Temple. The Registration Department had earlier placed these lands on its prohibited list to protect temple properties from encroachment and unauthorised transactions.
However, around 3,390 people who were occupying and enjoying these lands petitioned the District Collector seeking removal of the registration restrictions. Acting on their representations, the Collector issued an order on July 9 lifting the ban and permitting registration of the properties.
Challenging this order, Radhakrishnan from Salem approached the Madurai Bench, arguing that the Collector’s decision favoured encroachers and could result in the complete loss of temple lands. Chennai-based T.R. Ramesh and P. Bhaskar also filed petitions seeking similar relief.
During the hearing, the petitioners told the court that several people had already applied for registration of temple lands and were awaiting the completion of the process. They sought an interim stay to prevent such registrations.
The government argued that the District Collector was legally empowered to take back temple inam lands under government control, conduct inquiries and pass orders regarding their transfer to claimants.
Hearing the petitions, Justices Velmurugan and Ramakrishnan observed that allowing registration could result in innocent people losing properties they had purchased after saving money over several years. The judges said the restriction was necessary to prevent people from being cheated and stayed the Collector’s order lifting the registration ban.
When the government alleged that the petitioners had approached the court with an ulterior motive and had provided misleading information about registrations, the judges rejected the allegation. They questioned why the government was so keen on lifting the registration restrictions when doing so could jeopardise the interests of innocent people.
The court ordered that registration of the Karur temple lands remain prohibited until further orders and directed all parties to file their counter-affidavits. The matter has been adjourned to November 24.
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