All officials of HR&CE dept should take pledge afresh on

The Madras High Court on Tuesday directed the Tamil Nadu government to ensure all officers of the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowment (HR&CE) department, including its Commissioner, take a pledge afresh that they are professing Hindu religion.

It referred to rule 10 of the HR & CE Act, 1959 which says that every official or servant appointed to carry out the purposes of the act shall be a person professing the Hindu Religion and would cease to hold office otherwise.

What is applicable to the lower grade employee will have to be made applicable with more rigor to the person working in the higher capacity," a bench comprising Justice MM Sundresh and Justice Krishnan said in its order on a public interest litigation.

It directed authorities to see that all officers up to the cadre of Commissioner of the HR&CE were made to undergo the process of taking the pledge afresh within eight weeks.

Petitioner S Sridharan, a resident of the city, submitted that the department which administers over 40,000 temples in a reply to his query under the Right to Information Act did not provide any record, including details of witnesses, of the officers taking the pledge as mandated by the law.

It was obvious from the RTI reply that none of the officers had taken the pledge and they were continuing their duties without discharging pre-condition on being a Hindu, he contended.

The petitioner submitted that in the absence of taking and signing the pledge, the officers are disqualified to discharge any duty under the act.

"It is a clear breach of the statute and rules framed under," he said and sought the court's intervention to remove the commissioner and other authorities of the HR & CE from the posts they were holding and consequently declare actions executed by them as null and void.