TN Govt should not just stop with retrieving encroached temple properties, says Court
The Hindu
Monetary loss caused due to such illegality too, must be recovered, and officials must be prosecuted, orders judge
It is not enough to just recover temple properties under encroachment, the monetary loss suffered by the religious institutions due to the illegality too, should be recovered from the encroachers. The government officials who facilitated such alienation of the properties must be subjected to both disciplinary proceedings as well as criminal prosecution, the Madras High Court has ordered.
Disposing of a writ petition filed for retrieving properties belonging to various temples, Justice S.M. Subramaniam wrote: “It is unfortunate that the provisions of the Hindu Religious & Charitable Endowments Act of 1959 has not been implemented in an effective manner by the competent authorities resulted in looting of the temple properties in a large-scale manner across the State of Tamil Nadu.”