Kerala High Court on Friday ruled that only Hindus can be appointed to the helm of Devaswom Boards. The ruling came in the wake of petitions filed by BJP state president Advocate PS Sreedharan Pillai, Hindu Aikya Vedi general secretary RV Babu and former Travancore Devaswom Board chairman and Congress leader Prayar Gopalakrishnan challenging the removal of the qualification that Devaswom Commissioner must be a Hindu. The challenge was to the amendments in the law, removing the word “Hindu” from Section 29 (2) dealing with the appointment of Devaswom Commissioner.
The High Court had issued a notice to the Government of Kerala (GOK) on October16 in the light of the writ petition. The court had directed that an affidavit should be filed by the GOK stating that only Hindus will be appointed as Devaswom Commissioner. The court recorded the undertaking given by the Advocate General that the affidavit will be filed by the government. Accordingly the case was posted to today, October 26, 2018 for further proceedings.
The initial Bill introduced in the House clearly provided that only Additional Secretary to the Government who is a Hindu should be appointed, on deputation, as Devaswom Commissioner. But, when the Devaswom Minister introduced the amendments at the final state of the proceedings of the House, the word “Hindu” was omitted.
The idea behind the amendment was to appoint non Hindus as Dewaswom Board Commissioners. The amendments made do violate the country’s Constitution and the covenant executed for the formation of United State of Travancore and Cochin, for preservation of customs, traditions and usages in temple affairs.
This is a clear set back to the CPM-led LDF government’s sinister plot to demolish the Hindu traditions by diluting the temple management. The incident reminds one the appointment of a Christian as the member of the Dewaswom Board of the world famous Guruvayoor temple in 1990s during the regime of the Congress veteran K. Karunakaran as the CM. And, J. Thampi had to resign due to stiff opposition and agitation led by RSS-inspired organizations. It was called Temple Liberation Struggle led by prominent Hindu leaders like Kummanam Rajasekharan and others.
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