Hyderabad, April 23: A division bench of the AP High Court comprising D Prakash Rao and Justice Reddy Kantha Rao stayed the goldplating project of the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam. The bench is dealing with a writ petition filed by Raghava Reddy of the AP Devalaya Parirakshana Samithi.
The petitioner not only challenged the resolution passed by the TTD in 2005 but also questioned the provisions of the Endowments Act which empowered the Board to pass such resolutions. The stay comes in light of three earlier aborted attempts to stall the gold-plating programme. The TTD has resolved to gold-plate the sanctum sanctorum of the temple at Tirumala.
According to the petitioner one of the advisors opposed the project.
However, the authorities sought to proceed with the project. The petitioner contended that rare religious inscriptions would be hampered if they are gold-plated.
It may be recalled that while a division bench dismissed a similar petition on technical grounds a similar writ petition was permitted to be withdrawn.
A similar petition by Janata Dal MP Subrahmanya Swamy is also pending consideration by the court.
When these facts were brought to the notice of the bench, the bench wondered about the increasing interference with religious activities of temples.
Justice Prakash Rao pointed out of an instance where non-religious interference led to painting an idol yellow in lieu of ceremonially bathing the idol with turmeric.
Tirumala Correspodent adds: Ananda Nilayam – Ananta Swarnamayam Project is the pet project of TTD Chairman DK Audikesavulu Naidu. Naidu, after becoming the TTD chairman for the second time, tabled the proposal in the TTD Board meeting where it was resolved to introduce `Ananda Nilayam Anantha Swarnamayam’ donation scheme.
The donated gold and money will be utilised for gold-plating the entire, inner and outer walls of the sanctum sanctorum. The temple already had its `Vimana’ gold-plated.
The announcement received a mixed response from the devotees with some expressing apprehension about the project and said that it will prove to be disaster to the ancient inscriptions on the temple walls.
However, Audikesavulu Naidu went ahead with the project. However, no income tax benefits were provided under the scheme.
The total project required 200 kg of gold and as on date, it was reported that nearly 145 kg of gold in the form of metal and cash was donated to the scheme. Latest being Rs 1 crore donation by Mukesh Ambani.
The TTD, to allay the fears of the devotees about the safety of the inscriptions, recruited the services of epigraphy experts from Mysore and the impressions of the inscriptions on the walls were taken and same were digitalised and translated. The TTD had even released CDs of digitalised inscriptions, which were translated into six languages. The digitalised inscriptions on the four walls of the temple were also posted on the website – www.tirumala.org.
Sources in TTD said that there were differences between TTD Executive Officer IYR Krishna Rao and Chairman DK Audikesavulu Naidu over the project and at one instance even Endowment Minister G Venkata Reddy had to interfere to pacify them.
-Agencies