The high court put to rest the controversy over a non-Hindu deputy commissioner’s name featuring on the invitation card for a temple festival in Puttur, Daksina Kannada, by directing authorities to print a new set of invites, this time without the name of AB Ibrahim on it.
A public interest litigation (PIL), and one other petition, before the HC had challenged the inclusion of the deputy commissioner’s (DC) name on the invitation card for the Mahalingeshwara temple festival, which starts on April 10. The PIL was disposed of on Wednesday by a division bench headed by the chief justice.
The issue had taken a communal hue in Puttur after Hindu organisations and a local Congress MLA objected to Ibrahim’s name on the invitation. Under The Hindu Religious Institutions and Charitable Endowments Act, the deputy commissioner of a district is in charge of the functioning of temples under his/her jurisdiction. However, the Act also specifies that the DC exercising powers under this Act should be a Hindu. The advocate for the petitioners pointed out the clause that required a Hindu to manage the temple affairs. The court asked the government if it had any objection to the DC’s name being removed. The advocate general said the state had no objection, and so, the court directed that new invitation cards be printed without Ibrahim’s name on them.
New in-charge
The government also sorted out the issue of a non-Hindu DC by pointing out that the powers had been delegated to the additional deputy commissioner, who is a Hindu.
The court directed the DC not to take part in any discussion related to the temple or interfere in the festival.
The deputy commissioner, AB Ibrahim, told Mirror he had no clarity on what happened at the high court and was ready to follow his orders
What the law says
Under The Hindu Religious Institutions and Charitable Endowments Act, 1997, a deputy commissioner was vested with the power within his/her jurisdiction to act as per its provisions. But Section 7 says, “The Commissioner and every Deputy Commissioner or Assistant Commissioner and every other officer or servant, appointed to carry out the purposes of this Act by whomsoever appointed, shall be a person professing Hindu Religion and shall cease to hold office as such when he ceases to profess that religion.”
Source : Bangalore Mirror
