Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Aug 22, 2006
Online edition of India's National Newspaper Tuesday, Aug 22, 2006 |
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Tamil Nadu
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Chennai
Special Correspondent
CHENNAI: The State Assembly on Monday gave its assent to a Bill for amending the Tamil Nadu Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Act, 1959, bringing about far reaching changes to temple administration. Abolishing district committees for preparing a panel of names for appointment as non-hereditary trustees; deleting the provision of upper age limit for appointing trustees; mandatory appointment of a woman and member of the Scheduled Caste/Tribe as a member in the Board of Trustees and reducing the term of office of non-hereditary trustees from three years to one year are among the provisions. The Bill replaces an Ordinance promulgated in July this year. However, in deference to the stay in the Supreme Court, Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Minister KR. Periakaruppan said the provision to appoint archakas without any discrimination of caste and creed was being dropped. Speaking on the Bill, Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi said the provision to appoint archakas without any discrimination of caste and creed was taken after a great deal of deliberations with the Advocate General and was in line with a 2002 Supreme Court judgment. The Government had constituted the A.K. Rajan committee in June to decide on training aspects and qualifications required. He said the Anti-Untouchability Commission headed by L. Ilayaperumal had recommended appointment of archakas from all castes. A committee constituted under Justice Maharajan had said that such a step was not against the `agama sasthra' and people from all castes could be appointed. A Commission headed by Krishnasamy Reddiyar, former judge, had given a report to the Government on the syllabus for training. But some people were placing hurdles in the path of the efforts of the Government. This was not new. The Government had fought for many such cases like the one to conduct archanai in Tamil and would continue to do so. But for now, the Government would take into consideration the interim stay on appointment of archakas of all castes.
Agonising, says
Chief Minister
Mr. Karunanidhi described as "agonising" the existence of discrimination on the basis of caste. Earlier, the House defeated, by voice vote, a Bill proposed by P.K. Sekar Babu (AIADMK) opposing the amendments. Mr. Sekar Babu contended that the appointments made by the earlier AIADMK regime were non-partisan. There were women representatives in the temple administration board. He also opposed the reduction in tenure of non-hereditary trustees. Responding to criticism that the Bill was unnecessary, Mr. Periakaruppan said there was no intention to make political appointments to the boards. The district committees were not doing their job. The committees were yet to appoint non-hereditary trustees to 14,301 temples. Hence the department decided to hand over these powers to the Government, Commissioner, Joint-Commissioner or Assistant Commissioner.
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