A committee set up by the Karnataka Rajya Dharmika Parishat to suggest comprehensive changes to the Religious Endowment Act during the erstwhile Congress government’s tenure did not have proper legal backing, it has now emerged. The formation of the committee had led to a political slugfest between the Congress government and the Opposition BJP.
A bureaucratic bungling led to this piquant situation for the Siddaramaiah-led government ahead of the Assembly elections, sources in the Muzrai Department said.
The committee headed by N.K. Jagannivas Rao, which had almost completed the work of drafting the changes, was not aware of the legal position, and only after the vitriolic attack on Mr. Siddaramaiah’s government in February 2017 that the matter came to the fore, sources said. “Ideally, for drafting a Bill and suggesting comprehensive changes, a Cabinet nod is required or a Government Order from the respective department is necessary. In this case, however, the parishat, which comes under the Muzrai Department, set up the committee that did not have the government backing,” sources said.
Caught on the back foot
The Congress government was caught on the back foot after a notification was issued seeking public opinion on whether religious mutts should come under the ambit of the Act or not, and if yes, how. Similar suggestion was sought on bringing religious minorities such as Jains, Sikhs, and Buddhists under the ambit of the Act. The committee was set up to suggest comprehensive changes after the High Court stuck down the amendments brought in 2011 and 2012 to the Karnataka Hindu Religious Institutions and Charitable Act of 1997. While the government defended the action by stating that the move follows the High Court directive, the notice, surprisingly, did not mention the background, which was another “bureaucratic error”, sources said.
A top source in the parishat said the Law Ministry had approved setting up of the committee, but the bureaucratic structure in the department did not follow proper rules. “For over six months, committee members spent time on identifying loopholes and forming the guidelines. Almost 90% of the work had begun when the controversy erupted. Mr. Siddaramaiah was forced to stop the work. It was a wasteful expenditure,” a parishat member said.
The member said all the hard work went in vain prematurely for political reasons since the draft had to pass through multiple stages. “It had to be presented before another committee set up by the Cabinet, receive the Cabinet approval and then come before legislature for discussion. The committee was merely going by the High Court order and was not the ultimate authority. It was derailed.”
