Even as the Kerala Government is trying to\u00a0take full control<\/strong>\u00a0of all Hindu temples in the State and bring them under the\u00a0direct management<\/strong>\u00a0of the CPI (M), the Kerala High Court on Monday\u00a0delivered<\/strong>\u00a0a lethal blow to the State Government as well as the CPI(M).<\/p>\n When the Court asked the Government of Kerala how the\u00a0appointments<\/strong>\u00a0to the Devaswam Boards were being made, the government\u00a0did not have a proper<\/strong>and convincing reply which\u00a0spilled<\/strong>the beans<\/p><\/blockquote>\n A bench of Justices P R Ramachandra Menon and Devan Ramachandran said in a\u00a0landmark<\/strong>\u00a0judgment on Monday that the appointments to Devaswam Boards in Kerala, which control, administer and rule the temples, are\u00a0riddled<\/strong>\u00a0with secrecy and the Government has to change it with\u00a0immediate effect<\/strong>.<\/p>\n T G Mohan Das, Kerala president, Virat Hindustan Sangh, who is also the petitioner, in this case, told Team PGurus that if the\u00a0Government implements<\/strong>\u00a0the recommendations of the High Court, it is sure that the\u00a0temples<\/strong>\u00a0would come out of Government control. Das, described as a one-man army\u00a0waging<\/strong>\u00a0an intellectual, cultural and political battle against the Lefts and other religious\u00a0fundamentalists<\/strong>\u00a0in the State has been waging this legal battle since 2015.<\/p>\n When the Court asked the Government of Kerala how the\u00a0appointments<\/strong>\u00a0to the Devaswam Boards were being made, the government\u00a0did not have a proper<\/strong>\u00a0and convincing reply which\u00a0spilled<\/strong>\u00a0the beans. It may be noted that T Rajesh, a CPI(M) MLA, and a known Hindu baiter had introduced a\u00a0private member\u2019s bill<\/strong>\u00a0in the legislative assembly to take over the entire\u00a0Hindu temples<\/strong>\u00a0in the State.<\/p>\n Temples in Kerala have been the\u00a0Kamadhenus<\/strong>\u00a0or\u00a0Holy Cows<\/strong>\u00a0of political parties in the State. Though the Devaswam Boards in the State which administer the\u00a0temples<\/strong>\u00a0should have believers as their members the Communists pack them with their own nominees, mostly non-believers. Recently, the\u00a0Travancore<\/strong>\u00a0Devaswam Board wound up a vegetarian canteen in the premises of\u00a0Raja Rajeswari Temple<\/strong>\u00a0at Thiruvananthapuram and launched an exclusive\u00a0non-vegetarian restaurant<\/strong>\u00a0selling beef. The TDB is headed by Padmakumar, an acolyte of chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan.<\/p>\n Lord Ayyappa Temple at\u00a0Sabarimala<\/strong>\u00a0is administered by\u00a0TDB<\/strong>. But the temple or the Devaswam Board do not\u00a0maintain<\/strong>\u00a0a book of account and the public is in the dark about the goings-on in the temple and on the board. The post of a peon in TDB commands a premium of\u00a0Rs 5,00,000<\/strong>. It is an\u00a0open secret<\/strong>\u00a0that the post of the chief priest of Sabarimala is auctioned to the\u00a0highest bidder<\/strong>. Along with the TDB, the members of the Thazhaman Family, the\u00a0traditional priests<\/strong>\u00a0(Thanthri) of the temple are having a free run in the affairs of the temple. Mohanaru, the elder son of the Thanthri, was caught\u00a0red-handed<\/strong>\u00a0while he was performing \u201cPooja\u201d with a notorious woman in an\u00a0Ernakulam apartment<\/strong>.<\/p>\n The appointment of the chief priest of Sabarimala Temple is for\u00a0one year<\/strong>\u00a0and the going rate for the post varies between Rs 50 lakhs to Rs one crore, according to a seasoned\u00a0priest<\/strong>\u00a0in Ernakulam. \u201cI applied a couple of times but the amount they ask for is beyond my capacity,\u201d said the\u00a0Namboodiri<\/strong>\u00a0who belongs to a well known Illam in Kerala.,<\/p>\n Justice R Mahadevan of the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court accepted the contention of a devotee who proved with\u00a0statistics<\/strong>\u00a0and details extracted through\u00a0Right to Information Act<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The\u00a0Kerala Government<\/strong>\u00a0has made it\u00a0mandatory<\/strong>\u00a0for the TDB to deposit a major chunk of the\u00a0annual income<\/strong>\u00a0of Sabarimala Temple in the Government account in the\u00a0state treasury<\/strong>\u00a0and nationalized banks. No question is asked about how the\u00a0money<\/strong>\u00a0is spent by the government\u00a0though<\/strong>\u00a0there are reports that the money is\u00a0transferred<\/strong>\u00a0to some of the\u00a0church and mosque accounts<\/strong>.<\/p>\n The copy of\u00a0Monday\u2019s judgment<\/strong>\u00a0is yet to be\u00a0uploaded<\/strong>\u00a0in the Kerala High Court website due to server error. As and when the\u00a0verdict copy<\/strong>\u00a0is uploaded we will bring it to the notice of respected readers.<\/p>\n It may be remembered that\u00a0Madras High Court<\/strong>\u00a0in a recent order has asked the Tamil Nadu Government to furnish the details of\u00a050,000 acres of prime land<\/strong>\u00a0which disappeared from the temple properties which come under the\u00a0Hindu Religious<\/strong>\u00a0and Charitable Endowment Department.<\/p>\n Justice R Mahadevan of the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court accepted the contention of a devotee who proved with\u00a0statistics<\/strong>\u00a0and details extracted through\u00a0Right to Information Act<\/strong>\u00a0that 40 years ago, temples and related religious institutions in the State-owned 5.25 lakh acres of agricultural land which has come down to 4.78 lakh acres by 2017.<\/p>\n The justice ordered the\u00a0Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments<\/strong>\u00a0Department<\/strong>\u00a0to initiate urgent measures to retrieve the\u00a050,000 acres<\/strong>\u00a0of prime property and report back to the Court about the action taken. Temple worshippers allege that the Dravidian governments which ruled the State during the last five decades disposed off these prime lands to their relations and associates and for\u00a0gratification<\/strong>.<\/p>\n If these\u00a0verdicts<\/strong>\u00a0are read together with the Supreme Court verdict on the Chidambaram Temple administration in Tamil Nadu, the day is not far off when all temples in the country would be freed from the\u00a0shackles<\/strong>\u00a0of the governments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Temples in Kerala have been the Kamadhenus or Holy Cows of political parties in the State Even as the Kerala Government is trying to\u00a0take full control\u00a0of all Hindu temples in the State and bring them under the\u00a0direct management\u00a0of the CPI (M), the Kerala High Court on Monday\u00a0delivered\u00a0a lethal blow to the State Government as well […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117857"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=117857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117857\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=117857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=117857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=117857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}