Only Hindus will Head Devaswom Boards: Kerala High Court





The High Court ruling deals a severe blow to CPM’s sinister move to appoint non-Hindus to key posts in the Kerala Hindu temple administration board

Kerala High Court ruled on October 26, that only Hindus can come to the helm of Dewaswoms. The rule is in the wake of petitions filed by BJP state president Adv. P.S. Sreedharan Pillai, Hindu Aikya Vedi general secretary R.V Babu and former Thiruvithamkoor Dewaswom Board chairman and Congress leader Prayar Gopalakrishnan challenging the removal of the qualification that Dewaswom Commissioner must be a Hindu. The challenge was to the amendments in the law, removing the word “Hindu” from Section 29 (2) dealing with the appointment of Dewasom Commissioner.

High Court had issued a notice to the Government of Kerala (GOK) on October 16 in the light of the writ petition. The court had directed that an affidavit should be filed by the Government of Kerala stating that only Hindus will be appointed as Dewaswom Commissioner. The court recorded the undertaking given by the Advocate General that the government would file the affidavit. Accordingly, the case was posted to today, October 26, 2018, for further proceedings.

The initial Bill introduced in the House clearly provided that only Additional Secretary to the Government who is a Hindu should be appointed, on deputation, as Dewaswom Commissioner. But, when the Dewaswom Minister introduced the amendments at the final state of the proceedings of the House, the word “Hindu” was omitted.

The idea behind the amendment was to appoint non-Hindus as Dewaswom Board Commissioners. The amendments made do violate the country’s Constitution and the covenant executed for the formation of the United State of Travancore and Cochin, for the preservation of customs, traditions and usages in temple affairs.