Courts cannot interfere with day-to-day temple rituals: SC

What is the News?

The Supreme Court has said that constitutional courts could not interfere with the day-to-day rituals and ‘sevas’ performed in temples on the basis of “public interest” petitions.

What was the case?

A Writ Petition was filed in the Supreme Court challenging an Andhra Pradesh High Court order. The order had rejected the plea of a devotee to look into irregularities in rituals at the Venkateswara Swamy Vaari Temple at Tirupati.

How did the Supreme Court responded to this petition?

The Supreme Court dismissed the petition.

The court said that the constitutional courts could not interfere with the day-to-day rituals performed in temples.

Religious scholars and priests were best equipped to answer whether rituals in temples were being conducted in accordance with customs and traditions.

Moreover, the writ jurisdiction of a constitutional court under Articles 226 and 32 was limited.

Hence, whether a particular ritual was being performed in the right way or not was a disputed question of fact. This means that at most, these types of issues could be a subject for filing a civil suit in a subordinate court.

Source: This post is based on the article “Courts cannot interfere with day-to-day temple rituals: SC” published by The Hindu on 16th November 2021.