15-07-2025
- Politics
- New Indian Express
Anyone can move court to safeguard temple properties: Madras High Court
The property was originally leased out to her husband Mohammed Iqbal. The temple moved a petition in the civil court against him in 1994 and a decree was passed in 2000 for taking back the possession and recovering the rental arrears. He moved appeals against the decree and after his death, his wife Nachia pursued the litigation.
She questioned the legality of the managing trustee of the temple, instead of the HR&CE department, filing the petitions on behalf of the temple for executing the decree passed in 2025 in connection with a 2000 ex-parte order for recovery of the property.
The judge remarked that the petitioner has been protracting the litigation merely on some technicalities by filing many frivolous applications one after another in order to see the dispute go unresolved.
Disapproving of her contention that the execution petition was barred by limitation since it was filed after a long delay and the managing trustee does not have the locus standi, the judge held that it may not be appropriate to deny the respondent-temple the benefit of exemption from the ambit of the Limitation Act under Section 109 of the HR&CE Act in recovering the possession of temple properties and arrears of rent, merely on some delay in executing the decree.