SC upholds royals’ rights on temple

NEWDELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that the Travancore royal family has rights to maintain and manage the Sri Padmanabhaswamy temple in Kerala, allowing the appeal filed by the Maharajah of the royal family challenging a 2011 Keralahc judgment that had given these rights to the Kerala government. A two-judge bench of justices UU Lalit and

Indu Malhotra held that the royal family’s Shebaitship — the right to maintain and manage the temple and the deity — does not come to an end with the death of the ruler, who signed the instrument of accession with the Indian government in 1949 by which the erstwhile princely state of Travancore merged with the Indian union.

“We hold that the death of Sree Chithira Thirunal Balarama Varma, who had signed the covenant, would not in any way affect the Shebaitship of the temple held by the royal family of Travancore,” the court ruled. The court also accepted the suggestion made by the royal family on the constitution of a five-member administrative committee which shall administer the temple from now on. The administrative committee will consist of the district judge of Thiruvananthapuram, one nominee of the Maharajah of the royal family, one nominee of the Kerala

government, one member nominated by the ministry of culture (Government of India), and the chief thantri (priest) of the temple. All the members of the committee will be Hindus. The HC held in 2011 that after Chithira Thirunal Balarama Varma, the ruler who signed agreement of the accession with the Indian government, died in 1991, the temple stood vested with the Kerala government.