KANNUR: The Malabar Devaswom Staff Union (MDSU) has accused the Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam (SNDP) general secretary Vellappally Natesan of misleading the public on the High Court judgment on uniform Devaswom rules.

MDSU general secretary V.V. Sreenivasan said at a press conference here on Saturday that Mr. Natesan's reported comment, that the High Court judgment in 1994 was just an order for implementing minimum wages for the staff working in temples in the Malabar region, was misleading. He said the High Court had taken up the case suo motu on the basis of a newspaper report and the judgment rejected the Government's argument that only traditional temple trustees had the authority to fix wages of the temple staff in Malabar.

Mr. Sreenivasan said the MDSU had been demanding the constitution of a Malabar Devaswom Board, uniform Devaswom law in the State and same wages for same work for temple staff in the State. He said Mr. Natesan's reported remarks raised the suspicion that there was a lobby working to scuttle the formation of the Malabar Devaswom Board.

Such lobbies had been active during the terms of the previous United Democratic Front and Left Democratic Front Governments, he added. He also flayed the observation of NCP leader K. Karunakaran that the opinions of devotees in the region should be sought before forming the board. Such views would only help those who wanted to scuttle the moves to constitute the board, he added.

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