The Supreme Court voided a temporary trustee’s gift of temple land to the Tamil Nadu government. The ruling affirmed that custodians must protect temple assets for the deity and worshippers.
The Supreme Court has ruled that a state government cannot legally accept temple property gifted by a temporary trustee, news agency Press Trust of India reported.
A bench of Justices P S Narasimha and Alok Aradhe said the state, as a custodian, cannot unilaterally take over or allow its officers to take over property belonging to religious or charitable institutions that it is required to protect.
The ruling came in a case concerning the ownership of land belonging to the Nagapalayam Mariamman-Ponnachiamman Temple in Tamil Nadu. The one-acre-and-10-cent plot, comprising Survey Nos. 36/4, 36/5 and 41/2 in Kodumudi village of Erode district, belonged to the temple and was administered by its trust.
On August 30, 2017, the tehsildar issued a certificate stating that S Bhoopathy, the temple’s temporary trustee, had given the land to the government. Through a gift deed executed on the same day, the trustee transferred the land to the Tamil Nadu government, represented by the district collector and the tehsildar. The tehsildar accepted it for the construction of a taluk office.
M Periyasamy and three others challenged the gift deed, arguing that the transfer of trust property violated Section 34 of the Tamil Nadu Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Act, 1959, and was therefore void and illegal.
According to PTI, the Supreme Court said the state had a legal obligation to act as the custodian of the land. “However, the State not only accepted the gift of temple property but also continued to defend it before the High Court and before this Court, until the Chief Secretary of Endowments was called upon to place his stand on affidavit. Therefore, we deem it appropriate to direct the State to pay costs quantified at Rs 1,00,000 within eight weeks to the Temple,” the bench said.
The court said India’s religious institutions hold considerable wealth, including land, buildings and jewellery, accumulated over centuries through offerings from ordinary devotees and endowments from kings and commoners.
“That wealth, once given, ceases to belong to the donor, to the priest, to the trustee, or to the State; it vests in the deity, and every hand through which it subsequently passes holds it only in trust for the deity and, through the deity, for the community of worshippers it was meant to serve. Every custodian holds it only in trust for the deity and the worshippers it serves,” the bench said.
The Supreme Court declared the gift deed executed in favour of the Tamil Nadu government null and void under Section 41(1) of the 1959 Act. It also held that the deed’s registration had no legal effect.
However, the court said the lease in favour of the government would not be cancelled. If it had expired, it must be renewed. The monthly rent was increased to Rs 31,000 with effect from March 8, 2019, when the land was handed over for construction.
