A taluk office stands on it, and the rent has been raised, but the 2017 gift itself is void: the Supreme Court holds that the State is the custodian of Tamil Nadu’s temple land and not its owner.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court voids gift of temple land in Erode district, about 1 acre 10 cents belonging to the Nagapalayam Mariamman-Ponnachiamman Temple, which a temporary trustee had transferred to the Government of Tamil Nadu for a taluk office. Setting aside a Madras High Court judgment, the Court held that a gift of inam property dedicated to a deity is void ab initio under Section 41 of the Tamil Nadu Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Act, 1959 [K. Ramalingam and Others v. Government of Tamil Nadu and Others].
Justice Alok Aradhe authored the reportable judgment of 16 October 2026 for a Bench that also included Justice Pamidighantam Sri Narasimha. A taluk office has already been built on the land with public funds, so the Court left the lease in the State’s favour undisturbed. It raised the rent to Rs 31,000 a month from 8 March 2019 and imposed costs of Rs 1 lakh on the State.
The gift and the road to the Supreme Court
On 30 August 2017, the Tehsildar certified S. Bhoopathy as trustee of the temple, and the same day Bhoopathy gifted the land in Survey Nos. 36/4, 36/5 and 41/2 of Kodumudi village to the State for a taluk office, which the Tehsildar accepted. The hereditary trustee challenged the transfer. On 19 March 2019, the High Court dismissed the writ petition with liberty to file a suit, reasoning that the word gift does not appear in Section 34 of the 1959 Act and that the status of the land was a disputed fact. The land was handed over for construction on 8 March 2019.
In the Supreme Court, the State first defended the gift in a counter affidavit of October 2019. In February 2022 the Court asked the Endowments Secretary to state on affidavit whether a trustee can gift temple property at all. The State’s affidavit of 23 March 2022 then conceded that the land is inam property belonging to the temple and that Section 41, which bars such a gift, applies. In the meantime a Fair Rent Committee had fixed the rent at Rs 13,235 a month.
Why Section 41, and not Section 34
The land is inam property granted to the deity, the Court held, so Section 41 and not Section 34 governs the transaction. Section 41 permits Government sanction for other dealings, but not for a gift:
A gift of an inam property dedicated to the support of a deity is, in consequence, void ab initio.
Registration of the deed could not cure that defect, the Court said, since registration under one statute cannot validate what another statute governing the very property declares void. Even if Section 34 applied, the gift would fail for want of the Commissioner’s sanction and Government approval. On the State’s role under the 1959 Act, the judgment described the Government as a custodian and regulator of temple properties, not their owner, and said that every hand through which temple property passes holds it only in trust for the deity. The Court also criticised the State for defending the gift for over four years and treating temple land as government property before its concession.
What the Court ordered
The land has been declared inam property vested in the temple, and the gift deed of 30 August 2017 null and void under Section 41(1), its registration being of no legal effect. The lease to the Government stands, to be renewed if it has expired, at Rs 31,000 a month from 8 March 2019. The rent is to be re-fixed every three years under Section 34-A but never below that figure, while the lease period and terms are left to the trust, with the temple’s benefit as the paramount consideration.
The Court arrived at the rent by valuing the land and building at about Rs 3.04 crore and applying the Committee’s 0.1 per cent formula. Arrears from 8 March 2019, after adjusting payments made, must be paid within three months, and the costs of Rs 1 lakh within eight weeks.
The State and HR&CE authorities must also follow Sections 34, 34-A and 41 and the rules strictly before any exchange, sale, mortgage or lease of religious property, the Court further required, and be guided solely by the institution’s interest and not governmental convenience. It held that the State as custodian cannot unilaterally take religious property, whatever label or public purpose is attached to the transaction.
Regulation is not ownership
The judgment draws a firm line between regulating a temple and owning its land. The HR&CE Act gives the State wide supervisory powers, but the Court has held that these do not let the State become the beneficiary of temple land, even for a public building, and that a public purpose cannot rescue a transaction the statute makes void.
It also offers a practical template where the land has already been built upon: the void transfer is undone on paper, and the institution is compensated through market-linked rent, periodic revision and costs rather than demolition.
Case Title: K. Ramalingam and Others v. Government of Tamil Nadu and Others [Civil Appeals arising from SLP (C) Nos. 20051-20052 of 2019]
Bench: Justice Pamidighantam Sri Narasimha and Justice Alok Aradhe, Supreme Court of India
Date of Judgment: October 16, 2026
Appearances: Advocate S. Ravi Shankar for the appellants; Additional Advocate General Haripriya Padmanabhan for the State; Senior Counsel M. Sathyanarayanan for the HR&CE Department; Advocate K.L. Janjani for the temporary trustee; Advocate Shailesh Madiyal, amicus curiae