The first bench of the Madras High Court has directed the local Tahsildar to inspect the properties belonging to Sri Venugopala Krishnaswamy temple at Mannadi here and submit a report to the state Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowment (HR&CE) department, which should take immediate action to retrieve the properties.

The bench of Chief Justice M N Bhandari and Justice D Bharatha Chakravarthy gave the direction, while disposing of a PIL petition from A Radhakrishnan of Kannankurichi in Salem, an activist against encroachments on temple properties, recently.

When the matter came up before the bench on August 4, the counsel for HR&CE department submitted that a request had been made to the Tahsildar to conduct a survey of the land in question. If the survey results showed any encroachment, action would be taken by the department under the provisions of the HR&CE Act.

“In view of the above, the writ petition is disposed of with a direction to the Tahsildar to cause a survey of the land in question and send the report at the earliest, in any case not later than two months. In case any encroachment is reported, the department would proceed to remove the encroachment by taking the process, as provided under the provisions of HR&CE Act,” the bench said. 

(PTI)