THE Supreme Court’s order to the Centre this week review the management systems of top religious institutions in the country is significant. This step was long overdue and the intervention of the apex court,based on a PIL, was most appropriate. What prompted the PIL were two shameful developmentsin the Puri Jagannath temple, where the keys of the Ratna Bhandar (treasury, vault) containing the wealth of the temple have been missing for a long time. The inner chambers of the temple have not been opened since 1985. What happened from then till now is not known. The district collector is the custodian of the keys, but several collectors have come and gone.
No responsibility can possibly be fixed on any- one; not even the present collector who reported the matter to the authorities and the police. Some- one has spirited the keys away for misuse and plun-der of the wealth-diamonds, precious gems etc. No one has a clear understanding of the extent of wealth stored there, over generations. Add to this the fact that other unholy happenings were going on in the
Puri temple where no proper registry is being made for receipt of valuables on a daily basis. Clearly, the state government was found amiss. Muscle-flexing men acting as Servitors in the temple virtually robbed pilgrims in the name of conducting special rituals and
services. When the pilgrims protested — as was done by a Mumbai-based couple a fortnight ago – they are physically attacked, humiliated and even robbed of money and valuables.
In the Tirumala Tirupathi Devasthanams (TTD) re-cently, a chief priest was denied extension of service. He spilled the beans and made serious allegations against those manning the temple administration, saying the valuables in the storehouse are being looted and there has been no proper recording of what is received there. The Tirupati Balaji temple is one of the richest shrines in the world, and valuables or money in billions are received there in a steady
stream. A truck-load of currency seized in Chennai a month after the demonetization, in a highway raid,
led to reports that the money belonged to a promi nent functionary of the TTD, close to a politician, and the currency was clandestinely sent for parking at some secret vaults or for changing hands. Notable is also the predicament of one of the rich- est temple in the world, the Shree Padmanabhaswamy Temple in Kerala’s capital city. Against these backdrops, the apex court is fully justified in asking the Centre to set up a panel to review how the shrines are managed. If properly probed, this will open up a can of worms in the holiest shrines in the country.