The Supreme Court has held that all temple property is owned by the deity as a legal person and the name of the pujari or managers cannot be put in the property ownership papers.
Supreme Court has said pujaris have no ownership rights on the temple property. (PTI)
New Delhi,UPDATED: Sep 7, 2021 12:08 IST
The Supreme Court has held that all temple property is owned by the deity as a legal person and the name of the pujari or even the government officials in charge of managing the temple cannot be put in the property ownership papers in the revenue records.
"In the ownership column, the name of the deity alone is required to be mentioned as the deity, being a juristic person is the owner of the land,” ruled the Supreme Court on Monday.
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“The occupation of the land is also by the deity, which is carried out by the servant or the managers, on behalf of the deity. Therefore, the name of the manager or that of the priest is not required to be mentioned in the column of the occupier," the court said in the judgment.
The Supreme Court bench of Justices Hemant Gupta and AS Bopanna ruled that there is "no mandate under the law" that the name of pujari or manager is required to be mentioned in the revenue records since the deity as the juristic person is the owner of the land.
The judgment was passed during the hearing of a Special Leave Petition filed by Madhya Pradesh, challenging an order of the Madhya Pradesh High Court, which quashed two circulars issued by the state government under the MP Law Revenue Code, 1959 (Code).
These circulars were executive instructions issued to delete the names of pujaris from the revenue records to protect the temple properties from unauthorized sale by pujaris.
The pujaris had claimed that they held "bhumiswami rights" as the hereditary managers of the temples. The Supreme Court has, however, held that pujaris do not hold any such rights.
The bench also cited the Ram Janmabhoomi case verdict to support its view that the deity presiding over a temple is a juristic person and can hold property in their own name.
The Supreme Court has further held that even where the district collector or any other official has been appointed as the manager of the temple, their name can also not be recorded in the revenue records.
"We find that the name of the collector as the manager cannot be recorded in respect of property vested in the deity as the collector cannot be a manager of all temples unless it is a temple vested with the state," the court held.
However, the court has made a distinction between a "private temple" and "public temple," noting that the rule that only the deity owns the concerned property would not apply to "private temples".
"A temple in a house or which is not open to the public cannot be treated to be a public temple," the bench has ruled.
Published By:
Sanchari Chatterjee
Published On:
Sep 7, 2021
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