Executive Officers (EOs) appointed by Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR&CE) department to various temples in the State cannot interfere with the religious, customary and traditional practices of the temples and must confine themselves to maintenance of movable (including temple revenue) and immovable properties, the Madras High Court has ruled.

A Division Bench of Justices G.R. Swaminathan and V. Lakshminarayanan also held that the EOs could double up as Fit Persons (in the absence of a board of trustees) only under exceptional circumstances and and that too for a brief period. The judges, further, underlined that a Fit Person could be appointed only as an interim arrangement/ adhoc measure and not for years together.

The verdict was passed while disposing of a public interest litigation petition filed by temple activist T.R. Ramesh, through his counsel Niranjan Rajagopalan, to forbear the HR&CE department from appointing its EOs as Fit Persons to manage any of the temples, including the famous Parthasarathy Swamy Temple at Triplicane in Chennai, spread across the State.

The judges pointed out that the Parthasarathy Swamy Temple was an ancient Vaishnavite temple governed by a scheme framed for its administration in a civil suit filed in 1924. The scheme provided for appointing three trustees of whom one should be a Brahmin, another an Arya Vaishya (Komati) and the third who should be neither a Brahmin nor an Arya Vaishya.

The elected trustees were entitled to hold office for a period of five years and the membership of the electoral college too had been specified in the scheme. In 1976, another civil suit was filed in the Madras High Court following a dispute over the temple administration. The court, in 1982, passed an interim order restraining the HR&CE department from appointing trustees and directed the EO to act as Fit Person.

However, highlighting that the 1982 interim order ceased to have effect in 1991 when the main case got disposed of, the judges said, therefore, the temple administration could not continue to be run by the EO who had doubled up as a Fit Person too. They recorded Additional Advocate General P.V. Balasubramaniam’s submission that the board of trustees would be appointed soon.

The judges also said, Rule 4(a) of the Conditions for appointment of Executive Officers Rule, 2015 mandates the EOs to function along with the trustees which obviously means that the same person should not perform both the functions. “If both the functions are combined in a single person, the system of checks and balances would vanish... Lord Acton presciently remarked that power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” they wrote.

The Bench also said: “There are quite a few temples whose annual budgets run into several crores of rupees. If there is a multi member trust board and also a government official acting as EO, that would ensure that power is exercised properly. If there is no Trust Board and the EO is also asked to act as a Fit Person, such state of affairs would not be conducive to a proper administration.”

When Mr. Rajagopalan insisted on cautioning the EOs against interfering with the religious aspects, the judges said, Section 45 of the HR&CE Act, 1959 clearly states that only such powers and duties as appertain to the administration of the properties of the religious institution should be assigned to the EOs. The use of the expression ‘only’ in the proviso to Section 45(2) forbids the EOs from interfering in religious aspects.

“An area even slightly tinged with religious elements is a no-go zone for the Executive Officer. What is religious activity requires no delineation. Suppose, Kumbabhisekam has to be conducted, the date, timings, and the manner of performing the consecration ceremony are purely religious aspects. Anything that has to do directly with worship falls within the realm of religion. We make it clear that the Executive Officer of the temple cannot interfere with the religious activities, customary practices and traditions of the temple. That has to be necessarily carried out only by persons who are well versed with the customs and traditions of the temple concerned,” the Bench concluded.

Published - August 22, 2026 07:26 pm IST