Travancore Devaswom Board vs Ayyappa Spices

Judicial Analysis Court Copy Headnote Facts Arguments Court observation

2024 Supreme(SC) 202

A. S. BOPANNA, PAMIDIGHANTAM SRI NARASIMHA
Travancore Devaswom Board – Appellant
Versus
Ayyappa Spices – Respondent

Advocates appeared:
For the Petitioner(s): Mr. V. Giri, Sr. Adv. Mr. P. S. Sudheer, AOR Mr. Rishi Maheshwari, Adv. Ms. Anne Mathew, Adv. Mr. Bharat Sood, Adv. Ms. Miranda Solaman, Adv.
For the Respondent(s): Mr. Abhilash M.R., Adv. Mr. Sayooj Mohandas, Adv. Mr. Rajkumar, Adv. Mr. Arun Kumar, Adv. Mr. Sandra Jaison, Adv. Mr. Vinodh Kanna B., AOR Ms. Meenakshi Kalra, AOR Mr. S N Kalra, Adv. Mr. Kamal, Adv. Mr. Amratansh Aggarwal, Adv. Mr. C. K. Sasi, AOR Ms. Meena K Poulose, Adv. Mr. K.M. Nataraj, ASG Mr. Gurmeet Singh Makker, AOR Mr. Yuvraj Sharma, Adv. Mr. Vatsal Joshi, Adv. Mr. Sandeep Singh, Adv. Mr. Rukhmini Bobde, Adv. Mr. T S Sabarish, Adv. Mr. Anuj Srinivas Udupa, Adv. Mr. Vinayak Sharma, Adv. Ms. Indira Bhakar, Adv. Mr. Chitransh Sharma, Adv. Ms. Satvika Thakur, Adv. Mr. Yogya Rajpurohit, Adv. Mr. Aayush Saklani, Adv. Mr. Shubham Mishra, Adv.

JUDGMENT :

PAMIDIGHANTAM SRI NARASIMHA, J.

1. Leave granted.

2. Tirth and prasad offered at places of worship are regarded as sacred and bond the worshiper with the worshipped. While in temples and gurudwaras, prasad or bhog may be an essential part of their religion, it is not uncommon for other places of worship to serve some food, toast or drink as a religious offering.

3. As of 2019, it is believed that India has a place of worship for every 400 people. While in most of these religious places, food is prepared and served at a large scale on special occasions, there are hundreds of temples and gurudwaras, which serve tens of thousands of devotees twice every day. Several temples and gurudwaras have their own unique and traditional way of preparing the prasad or bhog like the Laddu of Tirupati and Karah Prasad of the Golden Temple at Amritsar¹[Guidance Document for Maintaining Food Safety & Hygiene in Places of Worship, Food Safety and Standards Authority of India, 1st Edition, January 2018.]. Though somewhat connected with divine blessing in the form of prasad or bhog, this case draws us back to aggressive competing business interests - for supply of 7000 kilograms of cardamom for m

Click Here to Read the rest of this document

2024 Supreme(SC) 202

A. S. BOPANNA, PAMIDIGHANTAM SRI NARASIMHATravancore Devaswom Board – AppellantVersusAyyappa Spices – Respondent

A. S. BOPANNA, PAMIDIGHANTAM SRI NARASIMHA
Travancore Devaswom Board – Appellant
Versus
Ayyappa Spices – Respondent