Chennai: The Madras High Court on Thursday restrained the State government from melting gold jewellery donated to temples belonging to Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowment (HR&CE) for gold monetisation till trustees are appointed to those temples.
A division bench headed by Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee ordered that temple gold cannot be melted without the approval of the trustees. "The commissioner of the HR&CE department cannot suo moto decide on the melting of temple gold without the recommendations of the trustees as per the HR Act" the Bench observed.
The order was passed on petitions filed by Saravanan and Gopal Krishnan, who sought an order to quash the September 9 Government Order (GO) issued by the HR & CE department regarding the gold monetisation programme.
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The interim order was passed in Public Interest Litigation (PIL) petitions filed by the Indic Collective Trust through its president, TR Ramesh. Advocates Niranjan Rajagopalan and J Sai Deepak appeared for the Trust. Furthermore, the petitioners contended that "the administration of temples is entrusted to its trustees and that the State government cannot take a decision to melt temple jewellery in the absence of trustees."
In the course of his reply, Advocate General R Shamugasundaram informed that the practice of melting temple gold is not new and that Rs. 11.5 crore has been earned as interest, which was used for the benefit of temples. "Now, the government decided to divide the state into three zones for this purpose. The entire process would be monitored by a committee of one retired judge of the Supreme Court and two retired judges of the Madras high court," he added.
"We are happy that you have members from the judicial fraternity, people with impeccable records. But decisions on melting will be taken after the trustees are appointed," the Bench said. The hearing was adjourned to December 15 and petitions relating to appointment of trustees to temples in the state will be taken up.
