The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Madras High Court interim order on Sai Samaj restored

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, May 19, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Madras High Court interim order on Sai Samaj restored

J. Venkatesan

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has restored an interim order passed by a single judge of the Madras High Court appointing senior counsel T.R. Rajagopalan as Advocate-Commissioner to supervise the day-to-day affairs of the All-India Sai Samaj running the Sai Baba temple in Mylapore in Chennai.

A Bench of Justice S.N. Variava and Justice H.K. Sema passed this order on a special leave petition from R. Hariharan and another challenging a Division Bench order of the High Court dated April 28 asking K. Thangaraj, elected secretary of the Samaj, and others to administer the affairs of the Samaj.

In its brief order, the Bench, after hearing senior counsel K.K. Venugopal and S. Guru Krishnakumar, said: "Issue notice. Pending further orders, the interim order passed by the single judge on October 8, 2004 will operate instead of the impugned order."

On a suit filed by Mr. Hariharan and G. Balakrishnan, a single judge, while appointing Mr. Rajagopalan as the Advocate-Commissioner, also asked him to complete the election process within two months. Subsequently, by an order dated March 19, the High Court appointed S.R. Karuppannan, IAS (Retired) and former Chairman of the Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission as a full-time administrator of the Samaj.

On an appeal from Mr. Thangaraj against the March 19 order, a Division Bench on April 28 permitted him and other members to administer the Samaj. The special leave petition by Mr. Hariharan and another is against this order.

They said the impugned order would cause grave prejudice and hardship as it would enable persons who were guilty of serious acts of maladministration and misfeasance to administer a famed/revered institution running the famous Sai Baba temple, apart from engaged in various other secular activities like imparting education, free food and medical aid to poor, free library etc.

They said the order would displace the arrangement of administration made in the wake of allegations of serious acts of misconduct of the office-bearers, which had not been taken note of by the High Court while passing the order.

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