HC orders HR&CE to ban mobile phones in Tiruchendur temple

MADURAI: The Madurai bench of Madras High Court on Wednesday directed the Commissioner, Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Department to issue an order banning use of cell phone inside Sri Subramania Swamy Temple in Tiruchendur.

M Seetharaman of Tiruchendur town, Thoothukudi district, filed in his petition before the Madurai HC Bench sought effective measures to prohibit the possession and use of cellphones inside the Tiruchendur temple.

The Agama rule prohibits the use of cameras to shoot deeparadhana, poojas and similarly taking photos of idols of the deities is also prohibited inside the temple. Therefore, photo cameras and video cameras should not be permitted by the temple administration inside the premises, he said in his petition.

The android cellphones nowadays are used to take snaps and video coverage. In many temples in the state, there’s no prohibition of cell phone possession. By using this opportunity, the devotees were taking snaps. The temple servants were facing problems every day and an uncontrollable situation prevailed during darshan. Security personnel were not able to control use of cellphone inside the temple as there was no ban on possession of smart phones inside the shrine.

Further, the petitioner stated that the Commissioner, HR&CE already took steps to prevent the devotees from possession of cell phones inside Sri Meenakshi Sundareswarar Temple and separate locker rooms were set up outside the temple for safe custody of cell phones of devotees. Hence, a similar facility should also be made in the Tiruchendur temple. It’s pertinent to note that there are opportunities to misuse cell phones by anti-social elements. Moreover, it’s unsafe for valuable metal idols of the deities, the petitioner contended.

A division bench of Justice R Mahadevan and Justice J Sathya Narayana Prasad after hearing the arguments said some archakars themselves take photos using cell phones and post it on their private YouTube channels. Such acts of archakars could not be accepted.

The bench then wondered whether temples in Tamil Nadu were ‘chathirams’ and the situation remains that people or devotees could do whatever they wanted inside the temples in the state. All these things should be changed.

The bench went on to order creation of facilities to detect whether any devotee entering the temple is in possession of a cellphone. If anybody is in possession of cellphone inside, it should be seized.

The bench also directed the Commissioner, HR&CE to issue a circular containing all these instructions and a copy of it should be furnished before the court in person. The case was adjourned to November 17.