HR&CE Department will give impetus to temple land identification exercise

The Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR&CE) Department has determined to give an impetus to a court-initiated exercise that commenced in February 2018 for figuring out immovable properties owned by each temple underneath its management, ascertaining the extent of properties alienated illegally to date, the lands that have been underneath encroachment and people for which paltry quantities have been being paid as lease or lease.

HR&CE Commissioner S. Prabhakar has expressed disappointment over the shortage of any main progress within the final two years and summoned all district-level Assistant Commissioners to his workplace for submission of the main points, together with statistics. In a communication to regional and district officers, he deplored the observe of officers offering contradictory statistics to the Department.

The communication recalled that Justice R. Mahadevan of the Madras High Court had, on February 12, 2018, directed the Department to type particular person committees to establish all temple land and free them of encroachment and unlawful occupation inside six weeks.

The decide additionally ordered that the property particulars of each temple be hosted on the Department’s web site, and motion be initiated towards officers who had failed to shield the lands.

Committees shaped

Immediately thereafter, the Department ordered structure of property identification committees in each temple.

District-level assessment committees, comprising the Assistant Commissioners, have been additionally shaped. The committees have been directed to submit their month-to-month experiences in an acceptable format to the HR&CE Commissioner. However, when their efficiency was reviewed not too long ago, it was discovered to be unsatisfactory.

The assessment revealed that solely 90% of the temples had constituted the property identification committees to date and even these committees had accomplished solely 25% of the work. Further, simply 10% of the temples had submitted their closing experiences. Expressing displeasure over contradictory experiences filed by some officers, the HR&CE Commissioner stated such an act doesn’t bode properly for the administration of the Department.

T.R. Ramesh of the Indic Collective Trust, which had filed a number of circumstances within the High Court for safeguarding temple properties, alleged that the HR&CE Commissioner started to crack the whip solely after a Division Bench of Justices M. Sathyanarayanan and R. Hemalatha not too long ago warned that he would have to seem in individual earlier than the courtroom if no correct progress was proven on the problem of alienation of lands.

He stated the Department was anticipated to report progress to the Division Bench on December 1 when the Division Bench would hear the problem as soon as once more.