The High Court of Karnataka on Monday quashed the Government Order (GO) appointing an administrator to Jagadguru Murugharajendra Bruhan Math, Chitradurga, and gave liberty to the devotees of the mutt and prominent leaders of Veerashaiva/Lingayat community to devise an appropriate action plan to administer and manage the mutt and educational institutions run under its aegis.
“The Karnataka Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowment (Amendment) Act, 2011, insulates the mutts from State interference, be it administrative functions, religious rites, or other temporal activities. If that be so, it is un-understandable, to say the least, as to how an administrator can be appointed by the government of the day,” the court observed.
Justice Krishna S. Dixit passed the order while allowing the petitions filed by the mutt and its devotees questioning the legality of the State government’s executive order, issued on December 13, 2022, under Article 162 of the Constitution of India, appointing a retired IAS officer as the mutt administrator. The government appointed administrator after mutt’s seer, Shivamurthy Murugha Sharanaru, was arrested in a sexual assault case in September 2022.
The court said that the 2011 Act made it clear that “the mutts and temples attached to the mutts are kept out of the purview of the Act, as the mutts are headed and managed by mathadipathis”.
Community conciliation
“The State and its functionaries should realise that by their very nature they cannot be panacea to all evils in society. As of necessity, it should leave religious institutions to solve their problems on their own by appropriate measure, such as community mediation/conciliation or judicial process, of course subject to all just exceptions,” the court observed.
Referring to legal remedy available under Section 92 of the Code of Civil Procedure (CPC) to address the issue arising over administration of mutt due to detention of seer under judicial custody, the court pointed out that no explanation was offered by the government as to why it had not instituted a representative suit under section 92 of the CPC to remedy the issue.
For six weeks only
It is open to devotees or members of Veeraishaiva/Lingayat community to avail themselves the remedy of representative suit under Section 92 of the CPC, the court said, while allowing continuation of administrator for six weeks only to take care of day-to-day affairs of the mutt and not to take any major decision, till the devotees or the leaders come out with an action plan.
The fact that the government had allotted some land to the mutt and given some funds, per se, would not justify its interference, especially when the terms and conditions subject to which that had been done did not authorise action of appointing an administrator, the court said, while declining to accept the government’s justification on appointing an administrator under its control.
