Observing that God is omnipresent and He has never sought a place, much less an encroached area, the Madras High Court directed the Chennai District Revenue Officer to demolish the Kottai Palayathamman temple constructed on encroached government land opposite the Reserve Bank of India building on Rajaji Salai here.
A Division Bench of Justices M. Venugopal and S. Vaidyanathan directed the DRO to raze the temple and evict its priest G. Gurusamy, alias Appu, within 15 days from the date of receipt of a copy of the court order.
The judges vacated an injunction order passed in favour of the priest by another Division Bench on December 28.
The priest had approached the court with a plea to restrain the government officials from demolishing the temple and evicting him from there. He claimed that the temple has been in existence for the last 50 years and that he himself had been conducting pujas, festivals and other religious events ever since it was established on the roadside.
He also stated that Om Sarva Sakthi Sai Alayam was also constructed within the temple precincts visited by more than 500 devotees everyday. What prompted the priest to file the case was the act of the jurisdictional Tahsildar who took measurements of the temple on December 21 and informed the priest of steps being taken to demolish it. The priest claimed that the temple had been in existence for the last 50 years.
Even assuming that the temple had been established on government land, it could not be razed arbitrarily without issuing a show cause notice under Section 7 of the Tamil Nadu Land Encroachment Act and following the principles of natural justice such as giving an opportunity to provide an explanation and raise objections, he contended.
Opposing the case, Special Government Pleader A.N. Thambidurai brought it to the notice of the court that the temple was situated right opposite to the Secretariat complex and the land belongs to the government. Since the petitioner had constructed the temple in blatant violation of laws, he could not complain of prejudice, the SGP said.
Concurring with him, the Division Bench said principles of natural justice would not be applicable to people who had violated the law and encroached public property. That apart, notice was contemplated under the law only to enable an encroacher to get away from the place of encroachment and not otherwise, they held.
Authoring the judgment, Mr. Justice Vaidyanthan said: “We are reminded of an incident in Puranas with regard to Bhakta Prahalada, an ardent devotee of Lord Vishnu, who, when questioned by his father as to where God is, answered that God is omnipresent ( Kadavul thoonilum iruppar, thurumbilum iruppar ).
‘For fringe benefits’
“If a person intends to build a temple for a deity, he should ensure that such construction is an authorised one. A devout person will not raise an unauthorised construction leaving it open to the authorities to raze it to the ground. People construct temples on roadside, mostly by encroaching public land, only to get fringe benefits.”
