An online petition filed at www.change.org urging the DMK government in Tamil Nadu to not melt the temple jewelry has gained massive response with more than 50,000 signatures.
The petition addressed to Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin and officials under him states that a secular government has no business in deciding which temple jewelry to be melted.
The petition also states that the government’s hasty actions are in violation of the orders of the Madras High Court.
“The court has directed that HR& CE to conduct an external audit by CAG under the expertise of ASI, created a central registry and update the Jewels details in the website for public. Melting gold jewels before the external audit will invite contempt of court.”, the petition noted.
The petition was initiated by Karthik Gopinath who runs YouTube channel named Ilaya Bharatham.
The DMK government had recently initiated the move of melting temple jewellery and converting them into biscuits for mortgaging them to raise funds for ‘further development of temples’.
Quoting a Madras High Court suo motu judgement from June this year, the petition cites that gold audit for temples had not been done for the last 60 years and that there has been no inventory and centralized registry of the jewels.
Petitions against this move of the DMK government continue to be heard by the Madras High Court.
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