HC orders to settle disputes over Avinashi temple land in 10 weeks – The Hindu

Frequent law and order issues witnessed in the recent times over the disputed 1.7-acre land belonging to the historic Arulmigu Avinashilingeswarar temple at Avinashi and the conduct of temple festivals on the said land, are all set to die down soon.

The Madras High Court has ordered the Revenue Divisional Officer (Tirupur) and Tahsildhar (Avinashi) to settle the issues arisen following difference of opinions between temple authorities and a community sabha over the rights on the land, within a period of 10 weeks.

The court directed the officials to pass necessary orders after sorting out the issues to ensure that law and order issues never cropped up again.

Writ

The order came on a writ petition moved by P. Boopathi Raj, a devotee from Avinashi, in which he pointed out that law and order problems had started coming up with the regard to the 1.7-acre land very often during the past few months.

“I moved the writ petition only after the continuance of law and order problem despite the issue been taken to the notice of District Collector and Tahsildar in separate memorandums on June 14,” added Mr. Boopathi Raj.

The land was a ‘nandavanam’ (garden) and it was dedicated to the Avinashi temple by a devotee named Karuppana Chettiar in 1901.

Executive Officer of the Avinashi temple told
The Hindu
that the patta for the land remained in the name of the temple ever since the land was donated to the temple except for a brief period of around in the late 1980s when it was forged into the name of a sabha.

“The patta was brought back to the temple’s name in 1992. The temple is still paying the property tax,” he said.

Garden

Lawyer-activist T. Sathyamoorthy said the person who donated the land did it with a condition that flowers from the garden should be used regularly for temple purpose.

“But now garden almost completely vanished and marriage halls came up,” he said.