The Commissioner, a trustee board and two excluded tracts: Tamil Nadu's temple endowments law

Background

The Madras High Court has sent a temple festival dispute between two groups to the Joint Commissioner in the State's Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Department, telling him to settle it on merits and without any reference to caste. The law he will work under is the Tamil Nadu Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Act, 1959, which is Act 22 of 1959. It replaced the Madras Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Act, 1951, after parts of the earlier law were held to be beyond the State legislature's power. The Act was written to cover every Hindu public religious institution and endowment in the State, with two exceptions: the incorporated and unincorporated Devaswoms of Kanyakumari district and of Shencottah taluk in Tirunelveli district. For a listed religious institution, meaning one with an annual income of not less than Rs. 20,000 and no hereditary trustee, the Commissioner constitutes a Board of Trustees with at least three members and at most five, and the Assistant Commissioner does the same work for non-listed temples. A later amendment made it obligatory to appoint a member of the Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes to the trustee board of a listed temple. Another amendment to section 116 gave the government power to make rules on hundials and similar collection boxes.