BT Buzz: What Padmanabha temple verdict means for 'religious' battles with government

The Supreme Court on Monday ruled the royal family of Travancore will have rights to manage affairs of the Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple in Thiruvananthapuram and the state cannot stake claim to its riches. The verdict is potent enough to influence outcome of similar such disputes going on between religious institutions and the government.

Sources point out that several such disputes have been ongoing between the government and religious institutions on management of power and wealth. Most of the large temples in the country are managed by different management committees and often disputes happen over their administration and ownership of wealth. Recently, it was a hot debate whether to take over temples' wealth to manage the COVID-19 crisis, they note.

As per an old estimate by the World Gold Council, gold holdings in India could be about 3,000-4,000 tonnes in the form of coins, jewellery and gold articles, besides diamonds, which are not segregated by value. It is also impossible to measure the value of many of these due to its antiquity. The Tirupati Sri Venkateswara Temple in Andhra Pradesh gets about 100 kg of gold every month and is believed to be the richest temple in India. Some of the other temples having huge gold holdings of above 150-200 kilogram of gold include Vaishno Devi Temple, Mumbai's Siddhivinayak Temple, Shirdi Saibaba temple, the Shree Krishna Temple in Guruvayur, Puri Jagannath Temple and the likes. A gold monetisation scheme offered by the government also had caused conflict within many temple authorities whether to encash their gold holdings. The Travancore Devaswom Board in Kerala, which runs over 1300 temples in the state, had recently taken stock of its gold and offerings by the devotees. Many devotees vociferously opposed the move, citing it as an attempt to sell the temple riches to tide over the Board's financial crisis.