“Religion says all are equal before God, but HR and CE acts contrary to it”
A public interest litigation petition has been filed in the Madras High Court Bench here against the practice of issuing entry passes for the Meenakshi Tirukkalyanam to be held in the precincts of the Meenakshi Sundareswarar Temple here on May 2.
An advocate, P. Sundaravadivel, had filed the petition alleging that the entry passes were circulated only among family members, relatives and friends of people working in the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments, Police and Revenue Departments thereby depriving the benefit to the common man.
According to the petitioner, the annual event of conducting a divine marriage between Goddess Meenakshi and Lord Sundareswarar was the most important and famous festival of Madurai. Lakhs of devotees from far and near used to gather in the city during the day of marriage.
Almost every devotee of Goddess Meenakshi would want to have a direct glimpse of the Tirukkalyanam which was originally conducted in the Tirukkalyana Mandapam inside the temple.
It was shifted to the Aadi Veedhi in the recent times to accommodate more number of devotees.
“I state that all devotees of Meenakshi Amman were happy at that time (when the venue was shifted) with the hope that they will get a chance of fulfilling their life long dream of watching the Tirukkalyanam. But, shockingly things did not happen that way,” the petitioner said.
Stating that the Joint Commissioner of HR and CE department-cum-Executive Officer of the temple introduced a pass system for watching the event, the petitioner alleged that these passes were garnered only by people belonging to certain government departments and ruling party functionaries.
“All these people occupy the entire space on the temple premises and none of the general devotees could see the Tirukkalyanam. Apart from these, the families of thousands of policemen and temple employees are allowed freely even without passes to watch the Tirukkalyanam.
“Thus, only the families of the rich and the influential persons could watch the Tirukkalyanam every year. This year, the HR and CE Department has decided to provide air-conditioning facility to the people who come to watch the Tirukkalyanam with passes issued by the Executive Officer.
“While millions of devotees are longing to see the Tirukkalyanam at least once in their lifetime, the HR and CE Department is abruptly denying it under the guise of pass system… When religion says all are equal before God, the HR and CE Department acts contrary to it,” the petitioner's affidavit read.
Representations
He claimed to have sent representations to the HR and CE Commissioner, Collector, Corporation Commissioner and Police Commissioner on March 30 seeking to dispense with the pass system.
The Corporation Commissioner alone responded asking the petitioner to approach the temple's executive officer.
Event conducted inside the temple was shifted to Aadi Veedhi to accommodate more devotees
Passes given to kin, friends of people working in HR & CE, police, revenue departments: petitioner
No comments:
Post a Comment