Chennai: The Madras High Court on Wednesday slammed the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR and CE) Department for the poor care of precious idols in various temples in Tamil Nadu and warned of a CBI probe if such negligence and indifference continued as idol thefts had become disturbingly frequent in the state.
Hearing a batch of petitions on idol thefts in TN, Justice R. Mahadevan expressed serious concern and anguish over priceless idols going missing from various temples in the state. Referring to the newspaper reports of theft of idols in the Annamalaiyar temple in Tiruvannamalai, he said the court was seized of the matter.
“Idol thefts have become regular in the state, the place where Saiva and Vaishnavaculture were born”, Justice Mahadevan said, adding that it showed the sorry state of affairs. If this situation continued, the cases will have to be handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), he said.
Earlier, advocate ‘Elephant’ Rajendran submitted that at a temple in Konerirajapalayam in Nagapattinam district, a big Nataraja Panchaloha idol and others were kept in a small room and the two police personnel on security duty were withdrawn. He claimed that an idol of Goddess Annapurani in the temple was also missing. Also, at a temple in Senthalai in Thanjavur district, there was no adequate safety where 30 Panchaloha idols, worth about Rs 700 crore, were kept, Rajendran told the court.
Referring to a complaint by Rangarajan Narasimhan, a Sri Vaishnavite with regard to the theft of various doors and idols at the famous Sri Ranganathar Temple in Sri Rangam, Justice Mahadevan rapped the Government Pleader and asked why the HR&CE Department had not taken action on complaints received in this regard. Pulling up the department, he asked why there should be a separate department at all if it was unable to safeguard and preserve the properties and idols in the temples.
The judge posted the matter for further hearing on Friday. The high court had, on June 27, made it clear that no one can interfere with the probe into idol theft cases in the state being carried out by a team headed by Inspector General Pon Manickavel, who had been assigned the task by the court.
