Madras high court says no to melting of TN temple gold jewellery till appointment of trustees – Times of India

CHENNAI: The Madras high court on Thursday restrained the Tamil Nadu government from melting ‘unused’ gold jewellery donated to temples for monetisation till trustees are appointed to the relevant temples.
However, the first bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice P D Audikesavalu said the three-member judges committee appointed by the state to monitor the process could proceed further with the inventory of gold donated to temples.
The commissioner of the Hindu religious and charitable endowments (HR and CE) department cannot suo motu decide on melting of temple gold without the recommendations of the trustees as per the HR and CE Act, the bench said.
The court passed the interim order on petitions moved by M Saravanan and A V Gopala Krishnan challenging the decision to melt gold jewellery and deposit them in banks.
On October 12, when the plea came up for hearing, advocate general R Shunmugasundaram informed the court that the scheme for melting gold jewellery donated to temples for monetisation is not new and it had been in existence since 1977.
“So far, about 5 lakh grams of gold jewellery have been melted and deposited in various nationalised banks which is fetching around Rs 11 crore as interest,” he said.
Now, it has been decided to divide the state into three zones for this purpose. The entire process would be monitored by a committee of one retired judge of the Supreme Court and two retired judges of the Madras high court, he added.