Founder of Isha Foundation and Spiritual leader, Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev has filed a PIL on Friday at the Madras High Court seeking direction to be issued to conduct an external audit of the temples in Tamil Nadu.
In the PIL it was sought for the constitution of a commission to examine devolution of shrines to the community and the formation of a committee which would manage temples, its rituals and practices and to examine devolution of the temples to the community.
Sadhguru has further sought the audit of 44,000 temples in the state under Human Resources and Civil Engineering department to ascertain the condition of all their structures, associated lands and immovable assets, status of possession and occupation of the temple properties, the rents received and the dues, among others.
Isha Foundation’s move to the Madras HC came after spiritual leader Sadhguru repeated requests to the government on conducting audit of temples in the state were not heard.
Sadhguru’s ‘Free Tamil Nadu Temples’ campaign was started after the state government presented a report in the Madras High Court on the sorry state of the temples of the state. Through this campaign, Sadhguru intends to put forward his views of liberating the temples of Tamil Nadu from the government so they can be run independently while having periodic external audits over the functioning of the temples