NEW DELHI: Within the landmark Ayodhya verdict, the Supreme Court ruled that Hindu idols have an indestructible legal persona and that an idol’s destruction does not end its rights over properties dedicated to it by devotees, worshippers and believers.

“The idol constitutes the embodiment or expression of the pious purpose upon which legal personality is conferred. Destruction of the idol does not result in termination of the pious purpose and consequently the endowment,” a bench of then CJI Ranjan Gogoi and Justices S A Bobde (now CJI), D Y Chandrachud, Ashok Bhushan and S Abdul Nazeer said in its Ayodhya judgment. “The idol as an embodiment of a pious or benevolent purpose is recognised by the law as a juristic entity. The state will therefore protect property which stands vested in the idol even absent the establishment of a specific or express trust,” it added.

In what could encourage religious bodies, which exercise authority over temple endowment properties, to dig into the past to find whether invasions had led to destruction of idols and consequent confiscation of endowed properties, the SC said, “Even where the idol is destroyed, or the presence of the idol itself is intermittent or entirely absent, the legal personality created by the endowment continues to subsist.”

The court was referring to properties attached to temples without idols, or the funds raised in the name of various puja committees across India, which according to the festivals worship Ganesh, Durga and other idols and then immerse them in water.

“In our country, idols are routinely submerged in water as a matter of religious practice. It cannot be said that the pious purpose is also extinguished due to such submersion. The establishment of the image of the idol is the manner in which the pious purpose is fulfilled,” the bench said.

“A conferral of legal personality on the idol is, in effect, a recognition of the pious purpose itself and not the method through which that pious purpose is usually personified. The pious purpose may also be fulfilled where the presence of idol is intermittent or there exists a temple absent an idol depending on the deed of dedication. In all such cases, the pious purpose on which legal personality is conferred continues to subsist,” it said.

“Upon making an endowment, the donor relinquishes all claims to the endowed property. The property now vests in the pious purpose at the heart of endowment, which is recognised as a legal person. The idol forms the material manifestation of the pious purpose and the consequent centre of jural relations,” it added.

