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Oachira Parabrahma Temple & Anr. vs. G. Vijayanathakurup & Ors.

Not available · 2024 INSC 922Decided 3 Dec 2024
Not available
Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna · Justice Sanjay Kumar · Justice R. Mahadevan

Background

Oachira Parabrahma Temple, a historic Kerala temple with no idol, building, or sanctum sanctorum, is run by elected committees under its own bye-laws, alongside institutions like a hospital and nursing college. A long-pending civil suit over framing an administrative "Scheme" for the temple led a Kerala High Court judge to first appoint a retired judge as an all-powerful "Administrative Head" over the elected committee, and later, even though no fresh election had been held since 2017, to remove the elected Executive Committee altogether and replace it with an unelected committee of the court's own choosing.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court did not rule on the merits of the underlying dispute or who was in the right, since the trial court's scheme-framing suit was still pending. Instead, taking a practical approach given the serious governance disputes, it appointed a fresh retired High Court judge as Administrator/Administrative Head with a clear mandate and time-frame (four months) to conduct free and fair elections strictly per the temple's bye-laws, fixed his powers, support staff, and remuneration (payable from temple funds), and left all substantive contentions to be decided by the trial court in the pending scheme suit.

Lesson Learnt

When religious or charitable institutions are paralysed by internal power struggles, courts prefer a time-bound, practical route back to a properly and democratically elected body over letting the institution be run indefinitely by court-appointed administrators.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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