Temple’s deity is owner of land attached to temple, not the pujari: SC

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has ruled that a priest cannot be recognised as a Bhumiswami (landowner) and the deity owns the land adjacent to a temple. The ‘Pujari’ or priest, solely controls the land for the purpose of managing the temple’s property, according to a bench of Justices Hemant Gupta and A S Bopanna.

‘In the ownership column, the name of the deity alone is required to be mentioned, as the deity being a juristic person is the owner of the land. The occupation of the land is also by the deity which is carried out by the servant or the managers on behalf of the deity. Therefore, the name of the manager or that of the priest is not required to be mentioned in the column of the occupier as well,’ the top court stated on Monday.

It goes on to say that the pujari is neither a Kashtkar Mourushi (tenant in cultivation), a government lessee or an ordinary tenant of maufi lands (property exempted from paying revenue), but rather holds the land for the Aukaf Department (related to Devasthan) for the purpose of administration.

‘The Pujari is only a grantee to manage the property of the deity and such grant can be reassumed if the Pujari fails to do the task assigned to him, ie, to offer prayers and manage the land. He cannot be thus treated as a Bhumiswami,’ the bench said, adding, ‘We do not find any mandate in any of the judgments to hold that the name of Pujari or manager is required to be mentioned in the revenue record.’

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It was said that the Collector’s name as manager could not be recorded in respect of deity-owned property since the Collector could not be the manager of all temples unless it was a State-owned temple.

Madhya Pradesh had filed an appeal before the Supreme Court, contesting a High Court judgement that had invalidated two circulars issued by the state government under the MP Law Revenue Code, 1959 (Code).

These circulars ordered the names of pujaris to be removed from the tax records in order to safeguard temple properties from priests selling them without permission.