Guwahati: Gauhati high court has directed Assam govt to constitute a statutory managing committee for the 16th-century Hayagriva Madhab Temple in Hajo within a month.A division bench of Chief Justice Ashutosh Kumar and Justice Kaushik Goswami, in a judgment pronounced on Thursday, directed the Kamrup district commissioner to constitute the committee under Section 25-A of the Assam State Acquisition of Lands Belonging to Religious or Charitable Institutions of Public Nature Act, 1959.The court said the committee must be constituted within one month of the authorities receiving a certified copy of the order. It held that the existence of an earlier civil court scheme could not justify the authorities’ failure to discharge their statutory obligations.However, the court clarified that the committee’s powers would be limited to supervising the use of govt annuities and grants received by the temple and verifying its accounts to ensure proper financial management and maintenance.Its constitution would not, by itself, empower the committee to take over the temple’s entire administration or displace customary rights recognised by law.The judgment followed a PIL filed by Hajo residents Mohan Chandra Malakar and Tilak Chandra Das. They challenged the authorities’ failure to constitute the committee and orders issued by the then Kamrup deputy commissioner on April 24, 2013, and March 25, 2014, refusing to do so because of an existing civil court decree.The court noted that the temple was a public religious institution receiving a govt annuity and was therefore covered by Section 25-A to the extent specified by law.It traced the existing management arrangement to Title Suit No. 3 of 1904, filed by the temple’s shebaits over alleged misappropriation of temple property by the then Doloi. A district court framed a management scheme in 1908. It was later approved by the high court and finally settled through an agreement in proceedings disposed of by the High Court of Judicature at Fort William in Bengal on March 17, 1917.Setting aside the impugned orders to the extent that they failed to initiate the committee’s constitution, the high court directed the authorities to comply with the law while preserving the existing scheme to the extent it remained legally valid.The court further clarified that any inconsistency between the earlier scheme and a mandatory provision of the 1959 Act would have to be resolved in favour of the statutory provision to the extent of the inconsistency.
