A petition has been filed at the Madras High Court by the Indic Collective Trust against Tamil Nadu Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR&CE) Minister and the HR&CE Commissioner for alleged misuse of funds from temples like Mylapore Kapaleeswarar Temple and Mangadu Kamakshi Amman Temple, Swarajya reported.
The Indic Collective Trust represented by TR Ramesh accused both the HR&CE Minister and HR&CE Commissioner of using cars bought from the temple funds of the respective temples for their own purposes.
They had used the temple funds even for fuel expenses.
Justices M M Sundresh and R Hemalatha who heard the petition have now ordered notice to the State government and the HR&CE Commissioner.
Along with this petition, another one filed by Rangarajan Narasimhan was also attached in which Mr. Rangarajan had accused the State government of ordering ₹10 crores to be collected from 20 rich temples in the state to be used for renovating 10,000 village temples. The High Court has issued a stay order with respect to this.
Quoting Mr. TR Ramesh, Swarajya reported that it is unconstitutional for the State to appropriate funds from temples and other religious institutions. He also alleged that the Tamil Nadu government is not following any procedure in utilising the temple funds.
It was also reported that these funds were utilised without seeking public opinion as mandated by the HR&CE Act. Many provisions of the Act itself have been challenged by the Indic Collective Trust at the Supreme Court.
There is also pendency in appointment of nearly 19,000 trustees to the temples as a result of which the government employees themselves are managing the trusts which is against the law.
The HR&CE has also been accused of using temple funds to renovating and repairing its own offices and to buy computers.
Earlier the State government was accused of misappropriating temple funds to execute public infrastructure projects which a brazen violation of the HR&CE Act. Recently, it had also attempted to regularise encroachments on temple lands through an order. However, this was stayed by the Madras High Court. The State government is now trying to vacate the stay saying that the lands are ‘unwanted lands’.
The Tamil Nadu HR&CE has not earned the goodwill of the devotees owing to the large scale corruption and irregularities in the department.