The High Court of Karnataka on Wednesday rejected a petition against anointment of a minor boy as the 31st seer of Udupi Shiroor Mutt while holding that there is no statutory or constitutional bar on a person aged below 18 being initiated into sanyasa.
“The petition has not been able to make out violation of any statutory provisions or any violation of constitutional rights guaranteed to respondent Aniruddha Saralathaya (now named Vedavardhana Titrtha) as the peetadhipathi of Shiroor Mutt. The essential religious practice has been going on for 800 years and the appointment of pontiff is a practice for the last 800 years indicative of the philosophy and teaching of Sri Madhvacharya,” the court said.
A Division Bench comprising acting Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Sachin Shnkar Magadum delivered the verdict while dismissing the petition filed by P. Lathavya Acharya, secretary and managing trustee of Sri Shiroor Mutt Bhaktha Samiti, Udupi, along with three other officebearers of the samiti.
All the petitioners are close relatives of Lakshmivara Tirtha swami, former seer of Shiroor Mutt, who had passed away in July 2018 without appointing a successor.
“The courts are certainly not meant to write the religious text, however, they are under an obligation to follow the religious text in the matter of cases dealing with religious dispute and to follow the old practices which are prevalent in religion so long as they do not violate constitutional rights of an individual,” the Bench said.
“In religions like Buddhism, children of tender age have become monks. There is no rule as to the age when sanyasa diksha can be given. Also, there is no statutory much less constitutional bar on a person less than 18 years being initiated into sanyasa,” the Bench observed.
Quoting from the arguments of senior advocate S.S. Naganand, who was appointed as amicus curiae to assist the court in the matter, the Bench said that religious text quoted by the amicus curie makes it very clear that “religion permits a person to become a sanyasi before attaining the age of 18.”
Essential practices
The seer of Sode Vadiraja Mutt, one of the Ashta Mutts of Udupi was certainly empowered, keeping in view the essential religious practices of Ashta Mutts, to appoint peetadhipathi for Shiroor mutt, the Bench held.
“This court is not a theological wizard and shall be transgressing its role as a constitutionalist authority by interfering with the essential religious practice, which is certainly not at all opposed to public order, morality, health or any other fundamental right” the Bench quoted from the verdict of High Court of Madhya Pradesh, which had declined to interfere in the religious practice in which women devotees who are Digambar Jain were not being allowed to perform ‘abhishek’ in respect of god Bawangajaji.
