The High Court of Karnataka on Thursday rejected a PIL petition which had sought directions from the court to the State government to regulate the affairs of Sri Ramachandrapura Mutt, and remove Raghaveshwara Bharati Swami from the post of its seer.
A Division Bench comprising acting Chief Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice S. Vishwajith Shetty passed the order while dismissing the petition filed in 2016 by Edurkala Ishwara Bhat and five others.
The petitioners, while seeking a direction to hold an inquiry into the financial affairs of the mutt, had also sought a direction to the government to frame a scheme to regulate all the mutts in the State.
No merit
“...we do not find any merit in the writ petition. However, liberty is reserved to the petitioners to take recourse to the remedy provided under Section 92 [to institute suit on breaches in trusted created for public purposes of a charitable or religious nature] of the Code of Civil Procedure,” the Bench said while declining to entertain the petition under the Article 226 of the Constitution of India.
All the mutts
The Bench rejected the plea of the petitioners to direct the government to frame a scheme under the executive power of the government under Article 162 of the Constitution to regular all the mutts, which are excluded from the purview of the Karnataka Hindu Religious Institutions and Charitable Endowments Act, 1997.
Pointing out that mutts have protection under Article 26 (freedom to manage religious affairs) of the Constitution and the State legislature had intentionally left out the mutts from the purview of 1997 Act, the Bench said the petition was not maintainable.
The Bench noted chequered history of litigation against the mutt and its seer, including a rape case, in which the seer was discharged by a sessions court in 2016 and the High Court in 2021 upheld the discharge. The Bench also noted that two suits filed against the mutt and the seer by some persons were dismissed by the civil court in 2017.
