These writ petitions challenge the constitutional validity of Sections 78, 79(3) and 109 of the Tamil Nadu Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Act, 1959 (Act 22 of 1959) (for short, the HR & CE Act) as amended by Tamil Nadu Act 39 of 1996 as well as by Act 28 of 2003 as ultra vires the Constitution. For the sake of convenience, sections 78, 79 and 109 of the HR & CE Act, as amended, may be extracted below:-

Section 78 : Encroachment by persons on land or building belonging to charitable or religious institution or endowment and the eviction of encroachers.-(1) Where the Assistant Commissioner having jurisdiction either suo motu or upon a complaint made by the trustee has reason to believe that any person has encroached upon (hereinafter in this section referred to as encroacher”) any land, building, tank, well, spring or watercourse or any space wherever situation belonging to the religious institution or endowment (hereinafter referred to as the property”), he shall report the fact together with relevant particulars to the Joint Commissioner having jurisdiction over the division in which the religious institution or endowment is situated.

Explanation.- For the pur