The Madras High Court on Friday directed the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR&CE) Department to redraw the schedule for the construction of strong rooms at 3,087 temples for safeguarding idols and other artefacts.
Unhappy with the 2021 deadline fixed by the department, the court ordered it to make sure that all temples in the State had strong rooms in a year.
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Justice R. Mahadevan granted time till July 30 for Additional Advocate General (AAG) P.H. Arvindh Pandian to submit the revised schedule. The time was granted after perusing an affidavit filed by HR&CE Commissioner R. Jaya, who listed several constraints in constructing strong rooms in all temples.
The affidavit stated that strong rooms with a ‘double lock’ system were already available in 11,512 temples in the State. Further, 19 Icon Centres had also been established at select temples.
As many as 3,087 temples did not have strong rooms, though 1,096 had adequate space.
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Construction of any kind on a temple’s premises could be carried out only as per Agama principles and Shilpa Sastrasafter obtaining the opinion of a recognised Stapathi. Further, a Division Bench of the High Court, in another case, had now constituted a Heritage Committee comprising of archaeological and conservation experts and made it mandatory to obtain its approval before carrying out major work inside ancient temples, the Commissioner said in the affidavit. Detailing the schedule, she said the construction of strong rooms for all the temples would take Therefore, the department would require time till December 31, 2019 to construct strong rooms in seven temples which had more than 50 idols, in each of them, that were not used for daily puja. Further, it would take June 30, 2020 to construct strong rooms in 81 temples which had 26 to 50 idols in each of them and March 31, 2021 to construct strong rooms in 512 temples which had 10 to 25 idols that were not used for daily puja, the Commissioner said. until She added that strong rooms in the rest of the 2,487 temples, which had less than 10 idols that were not used for daily puja, would be constructed by December 31, 2021.
Wondering why it would take so much time, the judge doubted her submission that 11,512 temples already had strong rooms.
To this, the AAG said the information was borne out from records available with the Department.
Financial difficulties
He pointed out that many ancient temples had inbuilt strong rooms used traditionally for storing idols, jewels and other valuables. The HR&CE officials had to just fix closed circuit television cameras and burglar alarms in these rooms, he said. Explaining the difficulties in establishing strong rooms, the AAG said 34,093 temples had an annual income of less than ₹10,000 and 3,550 temples were earning less than ₹2 lakh per annum. These temples were struggling to perform puja even once a day. Therefore, the government had created fixed deposits of ₹ 1 lakh each for 12,745 temples, he pointed out.
The monthly interest from the deposits were utilised for performing puja, paying salary to the priests, sweepers and watchmen, he said. However, ‘Elephant’ G. Rajendran, one of the two petitioners, accused the Commissioner of having filed a false affidavit claiming that more than 11,000 temples had strong rooms.
Subsequently, when the judge took up a case related to the alleged theft of idols and artefacts from the Sri Ranganathaswamy Temple in Srirangam, counsel for the temple refuted the allegations and claimed that all the idols and artefacts were intact.
He said the police had made inquiries into the allegations, and that the temple administration had taken up a survey of all 54 sannidhis in February this year.
After directing him to share the relevant records with the petitioner by July 18, the judge adjourned further hearing on the case to July 20.