Don't set up any more colleges with temple funds: High Court

Chennai: The Madras High Court directed the Tamil Nadu government not to establish any more colleges funded by the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowment (HR&CE) department.

No steps in such regard should be taken without the express previous leave of this court. "In other words, the educational institutions, on the basis of Section 36 or 66 thereof or even Section 97 of the Tamil Nadu Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Act, 1959, should not be instituted at this stage till the trustees at the relevant temples are first put in place and the leave of this court is obtained in such regard," the first bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice P D Audiklesavalu said.

The bench was passing interim orders on a PIL petition from T R Ramesh challenging a government order dated October 6 this year of the Higher Education department, which referred to four colleges being opened with temple funds at Kolathur in Chennai, Tiruchengodu taluk in Namakkal, Ottanchathiram in Dindigul and at Vilathikulam in Tuticorin.

According to the petitioner, merely because a policy statement was made on the floor of the state Assembly by a Minister in the present government, it has gone ahead with the proposal to divert funds from temples under the control of the HR&CE department.

He relied on several provisions of the Tamil Nadu Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Act and from, inter alia, the Rules framed thereunder, including the Functioning of the Board of Trustees Rules, to assert that the steps taken to implement the decision to open four colleges in a tearing hurry is completely flawed.

The exercise could not have been undertaken without the trustees being put in place in the temples, since it is them and they alone who have full authority over the assets and properties of the relevant temple and are in control of the administration thereof, petitioner said.

The bench noted that the four colleges, which are now ready to open, offered only BBA, BCom and other similar courses, without there being any regular course in religious instructions in Hindu religion. It will be a condition precedent to the four colleges opening that a stream of religious instructions in Hindu religion be introduced. If such a course is not introduced within a month of the college starting, the further functioning of the college cannot continue, the bench said.

It must be appreciated that however pious the intention may be to use perceived surplus funds for the purpose of education, these funds are out of offerings for a particular cause and, ordinarily, the cause must not be forgotten and the same must be espoused with a part of the funds, even though the larger sphere of education may also be addressed, the bench added and posted the matter for further hearing along with another petition, on December 20.