Should Murugha Mutt seer sign one salary cheque or many: HC

BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court on Wednesday directed Murugha Math pontiff Shivamurthy Murugha Sharanaru, arrested under Pocso Act, to file a statement explaining what he was doing to disburse salaries to employees before his arrest and whether he needs to sign only a single cheque or multiple cheques now.

Justice M Nagaprasanna passed the order after hearing a petition by the swamiji seeking directions to the jail authorities to allow him to sign cheques and other related documents to disburse salaries and for other day-to-day expenses for the management of the Mutt and Sri Jagadguru Murugharajendra Vidya Peeta.

The seer’s counsel argued that the petitioner should be allowed to sign the cheque for the disbursement of salaries of over 3,500 employees. There is no provision in the Trust bylaw to give powers to others to sign and also no powers to appoint Power of Attorney. Pontiff is the sole signatory and employees have been without salary for over two-and-a-half months, he argued.

The state public prosecutor drew the attention of the court to the pontiff’s plea being rejected by the sessions judge, and said that was the reason he moved the high court.

The court orally asked what is the solution for disbursing salary, as one’s problem should not result in difficulty to others and nobody should starve. “File a memo mentioning what pontiff intended to do and also indicate how the salary was being disbursed before his arrest. Also, disclose whether signature to one cheque is enough or for multiple cheques, since it was stated that 200 cheques were being operated per month,” the judge added. He asked the counsel for the accused to serve a copy of the memo to the state public prosecutor so that the matter will be heard on Thursday.