SC stays HC order on members of Shirdi temple management panel

In a relief to the Maharashtra government, the Supreme Court today stayed the Bombay High Court order which had asked to "reconsider and revisit" the appointments of members to the managing committee of Shirdi's Shri Sai Baba Sansthan Trust.
The Aurangabad bench of the high court, had last year passed the order in which it had refused to quash the July 28, 2016, of the state government's notification for the appointment of the members of the trust.
The high court had, however, asked the state government to "revisit and reconsider" the appointments of members of the trust made under the notification.

A bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi and R Banumathi issued notice on a plea filed by the state government challenging the high court order of November 29, 2017, and sought the reply in three weeks.
Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said that the high court has not agreed with the condition of the notification by which a person shall be disqualified for the appointment or from becoming a member of the trust, if he is "otherwise found to be unfit".
He said that the high court had objected to the meaning of "otherwise found to be unfit" in the condition and said "it is an independent disqualification and a person incurs it even if he is not guilty of misconduct or has not been charge sheeted for any offence involving moral turpitude".

The bench said it would look into the matter.

Shirdi town is known worldwide because of the "samadhi" of Shri Saibaba. Devotees come to the Shirdi temple from all over the world.
On November 29, 2017, the high court had said that it does not agree with the stand of the state government and held that the words and expressions "or otherwise found to be unfit" can be read restrictively.
It had said that the words and expressions of the condition was not restricted to just physical unfitness, but also included moral unfitness.
The high court had given illustrations and said that this condition would also include such cases where a person is involved in trading or consuming liquor; drugs; tobacco and banned substances, person against whom serious allegations are made of misbehaviour in public and a person against whom there are complaints of indecent and immoral conduct, especially with children and women.

It had directed the state government to reconsider the appointments in two months and said that it should not be influenced by the police verification or police report only, but also must take into consideration the allegations in the criminal cases together with other materials and take an independent and informed decision.
It had also directed for setting up an independent and impartial committee for reconsidering the appointments in the trust.
The high court order had come on a batch of public interest litigation (PIL), which had challenged the appointments of the 12 committee members, claiming there were some serious allegations against all of them.