The duty of authorities to ensure safety standards for temple car festivals and the constitutional obligation to preserve religious practices.

JUDGMENT

(Prayer: Writ Petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India praying for the issuance of a Writ of Certiorari calling for the records of the 5th respondent leading to pass the impugned order dated 13.05.2022 and quash the same.)

1. 'Our village will face divine wrath if the proposed Rath festival is not held tomorrow' – This fervent prayer of the writ petitioner made the Court to hold an emergent sitting from Nagercoil and conduct the case through Whatsapp.

2. The writ petitioner is the Hereditary Trustee of Arulmighu Abheeshta Varadarajaswamy Temple, Papparapatti Agraharam, Pennagaram Taluk, Dharmapuri District. His case is that every year the temple has been celebrating its car festival. The procession starts from the temple and runs through the four streets around the temple.

3. The procession takes about four hours and the distance covered is around half a kilometre. There are some eighty houses situated. This festival was being held year after year for the last eight decades without any break till the outbreak of Covid. Due to the restrictions imposed by the Administration, for the last two years the event could not be held. Following the lifting of restrictions, steps were taken to resume the holding of the festival. The petitioner wrote to the various Departments. A co-ordination meeting was also held. All the arrangements have been made. At this juncture, the 5th respondent put spokes in the chariot wheels by issuing the impugned communication on 13.05.2022 instructing the Fit Person as well as the hereditary trustee not to hold the car festival. Certain reasons have been set out therein. This necessitated the filing of the present writ petition. The learned counsel for the petitioner reiterated all the contentions set out in the affidavit filed in support of the writ petition and called upon this Court to quash the same and allow the writ petition.

4. Mr.R.Shunmugasundaram, learned Advocate General assisted by Mr.Muthukumar, learned State Government Pleader appeared for the respondents. I am happy to record that the learned Advocate General did not adopt an adversarial stand. He stated that the Government does not oppose the holding of the event. Their sole concern is the safety of the members of the general public. He submitted to the Court that on account of failure to adhere to safety standards, tragedy struck a similar procession in Thanjavur District recently. He emphasized that such accidents should not recur. According to him, after the defects pointed out in the impugned communication are rectified, the procession can very well be conducted and the State may not have any objection.

5. I carefully considered the rival contentions and went through the materials on record. The impugned communication had been issued by the Inspector, H.R.&C.E., Department, Pennagaram Taluk, Dharmapuri District. An Inspector is not one of the authorities listed in section 8 of The Tamil Nadu H.R.&C.E.Act,1959. No statutory provision empowers him to issue the impugned communication either to the Fit Person or to the hereditary trustee. It is is absolutely without jurisdiction and hence quashed. Since the stand of the respondents is evident, I do not stop here and I am inclined to mould the relief.

6. Car festival is one of the important features of many of the temples in Tamil Nadu. We are familiar with the expression ie., the street through which the temple chariot passes. Year after year such Car festivals are held. They serve a vital social function also as people cutting across all sections and castes participate and mingle together while pulling the chariot. In any temple, there will be two idols. One is called 'Moolavar', usually made of stone and is permanently fixed inside the sanctum sanctorum. On the other hand, 'Utsavar' idol is made of metal and meant to be taken in procession. We can conceive of certain categories of people such as very old or severely physically challenged, who are not in a position to vis