Surplus funds of a religious institution can only be utilized for purposes specified under the Tamil Nadu Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Act, not for commercial ventures.

ORDER :

K.R.Shriram, CJ.

W.P.No.19084 of 2024:

This public interest litigation came to be filed pursuant to a Tender Notification No.1, published in a newspaper “New Indian Express” on 11.12.2023.

2. Petitioner, who is a devotee of Nandhivaram Shivan Temple, situated at Guduvancherry, Chennai, states he is a person with interest as defined in Section 6(15)(b) of the Tami Nadu Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Act, 1959 [HR & CE Act]. The fact that the petitioner is a person with interest is not disputed. Petitioner claims that he is an ardent saivaite and performs utsavams as upayadarar as a matter of faith and devotion towards Lord Shiva.

3. The Arulmighu Nandeeswarar Shivan temple situated at Nandhivaram, Guduvancherry, falls under the jurisdiction and administrative control of the HR & CE Department. The temple is dedicated to Lord Shiva and thousands of devotees visit the temple every day. The area is called Nandhivaram after Nandeeswarar Shivan temple.

4. Admittedly, the temple has lands endowed by the devotees for dedicated specific religious charitable purpose. Petitioner states that the judgment in the case of Topulan Chettiar of Srigangam Temple would squarely apply to this case as well. We have not gone into those details while disposing of this petition.

5. The lands belonging to the temple are situated right across the gopuram main street entrance leading to Arulmighu Shri Pudu Palayathu Amman temple at Nandhivaram Village. Shri Pudu Palayathu Amman temple is not under the control of the HR & CE Department and is situated near the Shivan temple. The said Amman temple is run by a religious trust unconnected with the HR & CE Department and petitioner is the Secretary of the said Amman temple. It is stated that there is a plot of land belonging to Shivan temple, which is adjacent to the said Amman temple. In the present case, the said vacant land is sought to be utilized by the HR & CE Department for construction of a commercial shopping complex. Of course, it is the case of the Department that the shopping complex was proposed to be constructed using the surplus funds of the Shivan temple so that more funds are generated and those funds are utilized for further development of the Shivan temple.

6. Petitioner's case is that the surplus funds also could be utilised only for such purposes as provided under the HR & CE Act. Shri Jagannath submitted that the endowments can be also appropriated only as per the provisions of the HR & CE Act.

7. Another ground, which is also taken, is that there are no trustees appointed to Shivan temple and it is run as a kingdom of the Joint Commissioner.

8. Shri Natarajan submitted that process to appoint trustees has already commenced and in the next 15 days, the trustees will be appointed. Therefore, we are not going into the issue of appointment of such trustees at this stage and we leave it to petitioner to move the Court again in a separate petition, if he is unhappy or dissatisfied with the trustees appointed or the method of appointment of the trustees.

9. We are, in this order, only considering whether the HR & CE Department could use the surplus funds for constructing a shopping complex in the land belonging to the temple.

10. Sections 36, 36-A, 36-B and Section 66 of the HR & CE Act, read as under:

“36. Utilisation of surplus funds.- With the previous sanction of the Commissioner and subject to such conditions and restrictions as may be prescribed, the trustee of a religious institution may appropriate for any of the purposes specified in sub-section (1) of Section 66.

(i) any portion of the accumulated surplus of such institution; and

(ii) if, after making adequate provision for the purposes referred to in sub-section (2) of Section 86 and also for the arrangements and the training referred to in sub-section (1) of Section 35, there is a surplus in the income of the institution for any year or any portion of such surplus:

Provided that the trustee shall, in appropriating the surplus un