New Delhi, In a significant observation with implications for the management of religious endowments, Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna (presided over by Justice Surya Kant) has ruled that funds belonging to Hindu temples are the exclusive property of the deity and cannot be deployed to rescue financially distressed cooperative banks.
“You want to use the temple’s money to save the bank?” Justice Surya Kant remarked sharply during Friday’s hearing. “What is wrong in directing that money belonging to the temple, instead of remaining in a cooperative bank that is barely surviving, be shifted to a sound nationalised bank which can offer higher interest?”
The bench, also comprising Justice Joymalya Bagchi, was hearing special leave petitions filed by two Kerala-based cooperative lenders — Mananthavady Co-operative Urban Society Ltd and Thirunelly Service Co-operative Bank Ltd — against a Kerala High Court order. The high court had directed five cooperative banks to immediately close fixed deposits held on behalf of the Thirunelli Temple Devaswom and return the entire principal within two months after the banks repeatedly refused to honour matured deposits.
The Supreme Court declined to interfere with the substance of the high court’s directive, holding that temple funds constitute the personal property of the deity under Hindu law and must be preserved and utilised solely for the benefit of the temple.
“The money belongs to the God,” the bench observed. “It has to be saved, secured and spent only in the interest of the temple. It cannot become a source of income or sustenance for any cooperative bank.”
Dismissing the banks’ plea that the high court’s “sudden” order would cause operational hardship, the bench remarked: “If you are unable to bring in customers and deposits, that is your problem. You have to earn credibility among the public.”
While refusing to stay the high court order, the court granted liberty to the petitioners to approach the high court for reasonable extension of time to comply with the repayment directive.
Legal experts note that the ruling reinforces long-standing jurisprudence, from the 1954 Shirur Mutt case onwards, that offerings made to a deity constitute juridical property vested in the idol as a legal person, with the temple management acting merely as custodian or shebait.
The verdict is likely to prompt many temple boards and devaswoms across the country to review their exposure to smaller cooperative and urban banks, particularly in southern states where large temples traditionally maintain substantial cash surpluses in fixed deposits.
