Thottathil B. Radhakrishnan, J.

All the captioned writ petitions relate to the challenge raised to what has been issued by the Travancore Devaswom Board as bye-laws for the constitution of the Temple Advisory Committees for various temples coming under it. It is a matter of record that the Board had filed DBA No.153/09 seeking approval of what it prepared as bye-laws and this court requested the learned Ombudsman for the Devaswom Board to make suggestions to the same. The learned Ombudsman made suggestions regarding the contents of the suggested bye-laws and they were recorded by this court in its order dated 15.01.2010 in DBA No.153/09.

2. The writ petitions raise the ground that the so called bye-laws have no legal standing and that this court was not appraised of the relevant statutory provisions when the Board sought approval of what it called as bye-laws.

3. Section 31A was introduced into the Travancore Cochin Hindu Religious Institutions Act, 1950 by the amendment brought as per Act 5 of 2007, which reads as follows:

“31A. Formation of Temple Advisory Committees –

(1) A committee for each temple in the name “Temple Advisory Committee” (name of the temple) may be c