Madras HC denies stay on govt funding for ‘Thirukovil TV’

The Madras High Court disposed of a petition that sought a stay on the Tamil Nadu Government Order, to use the funds from the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR&CE) department to start a dedicated TV channel for temples. The state government had issued an order allocating Rs 8.77 crore from the HR&CE department for a TV channel to broadcast temple festivals, in March 2020.

A bench consisting of Justice Mahadevan and Justice Anitha Sumanth, on Thursday ordered that the petition filed seeking a stay on the order be quashed. A petition was filed in the Madras High Court by the Indic Collective Trust seeking a stay against the government order. The petition was heard in December by the bench and the verdict was reserved without mentioning the date. The counsel appearing for the petitioner argued that the funds allocated by the government order was not appropriate and that the general funds of the HR&CE department must be used only for maintaining temples and not for starting a TV channel. The counsel further argued that to use the department’s general funds for this purpose, the government should have sought objections from interested parties and pointed out that this was not done.

The state government argued that the call to allocate funds to start a dedicated TV channel for temple festivals is a policy decision of the government and denied the petitioner’s claims that rules have been flouted. It also stated that objections need to be recorded only while allocating funds to temples by the department and not when funds are allocated to start a TV channel and that a similar petition has been disposed of by the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court earlier.