Q. Consider the following statements with reference to the Right to Shebaitship:
1. According to the Supreme Court, the Shebait is a custodian of idol and is entitled to manage the idol’s property.
2. Death of a ruler completely nullifies the royal family’s Shebaitship of a temple.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
Exp) Option a is the correct answer.
The Supreme Court held that the erstwhile Travancore royal family is the “human ministrant” or the shebait (manager) of the properties belonging to Sri Padmanabha, chief deity of the famed and fabulously rich Sri Padmanabhaswamy temple in Kerala.
Statement 1 is correct: The court defined ‘shebait’ as the “custodian of the idol, its earthly spokesman, its authorized representative entitled to deal with all its temporal affairs and to manage its property”. The court traced how the shebaitship descended from King Marthanda Varma, who rebuilt the temple and installed a new idol after a fire destroyed the temple in 1686. It referred to how the King surrendered his kingdom in January 1750 and assumed the role of ‘Padmanabhadasa’ after realizing “the futility of battles as a means to an end and the conscious feeling that the Travancore he created was built on a foundation of sacrifice of the liver and limbs of countless numbers who fell due to him and for him.
Statement 2 is incorrect: The judgment reads that the death of a ruler does not affect the royal family’s shebaitship of the temple. Shebaitship was always in the royal family and the Ruler represented the unbroken line of shebaits. Shebaitship does not lapse in favour of the State by principle of escheat (reversion of property to the State).
