Madras HC judge goes to temple without disclosing his identity, encounters misappropriation

Justice S.M. Subramaniam said he went to Vadapalani Murugan temple with his family and was given the wrong number of tickets for special darshan; when he pointed this out, the temple staff behaved rudely, and gheraoed him; the judge has given a written complaint and asked for remedial action

Justice S.M. Subramaniam of the Madras High Court on Monday took serious note of corruption in the issuance of special Dharshan tickets at the Vadapalani Dhandayudhapani Temple in Chennai.

The judge told the temple’s Executive Officer, who was present in the court along with State Government Pleader (SGP) P. Muthukumar, that he visited the temple with his family on Saturday.

“I didn’t want to have a VIP dharshan by disclosing my identity. Therefore, I went there as a common man and purchased three special dharshan tickets costing ₹50 each,” the judge said. To his shock, he found that the staff manning the counter issued only two ₹50 tickets and one ₹5 ticket, despite taking ₹150 from him. On being questioned, the staff behaved rudely.

The judge wondered why there were no notice boards with contact numbers of official authorities to whom the devotees could complain when they encounter such misappropriation. He said the temple staff refused to share the phone number of the Executive Officer to lodge a complaint regarding the illegality and indulged in a wordy duel trying to intimidate him and his family.

“When my wife asked, why wouldn’t they share the phone number of the EO when even the Chief Minister does not hesitate to shares his number with the people, the temple employee said, CM may share but he won’t share,” the judge lamented.

The judge added that the temple staff gheraoed him for questioning the illegality and would have pushed him out of the temple too, like they do with others, if the local police had not arrived at the spot and identified him.

“If such is the situation of a temple which owns properties worth hundreds of crores of rupees and with an annual income of ₹14 crore, I shudder to think what would be happening in other temples, “ he said.