Whether Family Temple Can Be Dedicated To General Public Without Following Rituals & Customs: SC

A petition has been recently filed in the Supreme Court to determine whether a family temple can be dedicated to the general public without following any religious rituals, practices, and customs.

The division bench of Justices Abhay S Oka & Ahsanuddin Amanullah issued a notice in the petition challenging an order of the Kerala High Court effectively granting rights and title of a temple to a party in an injunction suit.

The order states, “Issue notice returnable on 8th May 2023. In the meanwhile, direction issued by the High Court to hand over two keys of sanctum sanctorum will remain stayed.”

The petitioners are a board and a committee constituted under the board to manage the affairs of the Thiru Keralapuram Sreekrishna Swamy temple.

Therefore they claimed that the High Court erroneously created an altogether new case and framed fresh issues at the stage of a second appeal while directing for the keys of the temple to the handed over to the respondents.

The plea reads that “In the absence of a prayer or pleading on behalf of the Respondent qua title and possession over the schedule property, the Hon’ble High Court, at the stage of the second appeal, has erroneously framed the said issue, which is beyond the pleadings and material on record, causing grave prejudice to the Petitioner Board herein.”

According to the petitioners, the title & possession of the temple was given to them by a Munsiff court in 1989.

Therefore, it was argued that without considering undisputed facts, the High Court committed a grave error by adjudicating the title and possession which already had attained finality in 1989.

Further, the plea stated that the Court deprived board of placing necessary facts of the case, imperative for the fair & proper adjudication of the issues involved in the case, as it didn’t implead its office bearers.

Also, The petitioners claimed that the issues raised by the respondents were without any foundation as they were never raised at any stage of the proceedings before the trial court. Senior Advocate Naveen R Nath along with Advocates Deepak Prakash, Sriram Parakkat, Sreenath, Divyangana, Nachiketa Bajpayee, MS Vishnu Sankar, and Athira G Nair appeared for the petitioners.