HC comes down on Srirangam temple official

Madras High Court today came down on a senior HR and CE official in the famous Lord Ranganathaswamy temple in Srirangam for certain remarks he made in a reply to a complaint and said he has a huge attitude problem and was practically unfit to hold the post.
"We are of the view that clearly the officer has some misgivings about the authority he holds, and he has a huge attitude problem, making him practically unfit to the post he is holding," first bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice M Sundar observed.
The bench made the remarks after perusing written replies of the Joint Commissioner/Executive Officer of the temple during the hearing of a petition by one Rangarajan Narasimhan seeking a direction to the authorities to remove barricades in the second 'prakara' of the shrine.

In one of the letters, the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowment (HR and CE) official has warned the petitioner that he will take civil and criminal action against him for making 'unnecessary complaints' and also said he was assuming himself as an high court judge.
Referring to the official's poser, the bench in its order said "He alleges that the petitioner is like a high court Judge. What does it mean?He takes a stand that he is the competent authority to decide the religious and administrative activities in the temple, which is not so, as the religious activities can't be kept to the executive officer."

Stating that the words used by him were condemnable, the Chief Justice questioned the counsel for the Tamil Nadu government "whether you are going to change (him) or can we."
The bench directed the authorities to file an affidavit on this and posted the matter for further hearing to Feb 13. It also asked them to look into the issue raised by the petitioner.