Chennai, July 14(BPNS)
The Tamil Nadu government has reclaimed land worth 160 crore rupees of the Kancheepuram Ekambareswar Temple from a trust that ran the Seetha Kingston House Matriculation Higher Secondary School.
The Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR&CE) department on Sunday took procession of 32 ground property on Poonamalle High Road, Kilpauk. This land is part of a 141 ground land of the Kancheepuram Ekambareswar Temple.
The trust had leased 44.5 grounds of the temple of which 12.5 grounds it had returned back to the temple.
The HR& CE minister P.K. Sekar Babu and the department commissioner J Kumaragurubaran received the papers of the temple property from the trust officials on Sunday. Minister Sekar Babu while speaking to IANS said, “ We have taken steps to retrieve the remaining area from other tenants who had even subleased the property. There are litigations over two properties and we are expecting to retrieve the land within six months period.”
An official press release of HR&CE said that the Calavala Cunnan Chetty Charities trust had taken 44.5 grounds of the land of the Ekambareswar Temple on Poonamalle High Road , Kilpauk for a 99-year-old lease and was running the Seetha Kingston school there. The HR&CE department moved the court for the retrieval of the land and the Madras High court ruled in favour of the HR&CE department.
The value of the remaining 96.5 grounds of land is estimated to be Rs 483 crores and the department, according to the minister will be moving litigations and retrieve the land within six months.
Subletting of temple, properties were rampant in Tamil Nadu and the DMK government after assuming office had called upon the HR&CE department to take steps for the retrieval of the temple land given on lease.
It may be noted that there is a loss of around 40,000 acres of temple land across Tamil Nadu when the land details of 1984-85 were compared with that of 2019-20.
The government has ordered to upload all details of the temple properties including land and other assets online so that it comes under the public domain.
