The Supreme Court on September 19 orally observed that ₹5 crore contributed by the Guruvayur Temple to the Chief Minister’s Disaster Relief Fund (CMDRF) soon after the devastating 2018 floods in Kerala may be by nature an “essentially philanthropic” act.
A three-judge Bench led by Chief Justice U.U. Lalit observed this while ordering parties to maintain “status quo until further consideration” in the case.
The temple had appealed against a Kerala High Court decision which declared the temple management’s contribution as illegal on the ground that the money was the deity’s property and was sourced from the contributions deposited by the worshippers in the temple hundis.
