Supreme Court upholds eviction of Muslim families from Tamil Nadu temple land

The Supreme Court on Monday upheld eviction orders concerning 3.93 acres of land belonging to the Arulmigu Annamalainathar Temple at Kadayanallur in Tamil Nadu, where residential houses, a mosque and an Arabic school were built after portions of the property changed hands.

A Bench of Justices Aravind Kumar and Vipul Pancholi declined to interfere with the Madras High Court ruling in the dispute.

The dispute goes back more than three decades.

The 3.93-acre parcel forms part of the properties of the Annamalainathar Temple. In 1994, the Tamil Nadu Temple Administration Board permitted its sale through public auction. The upset price was fixed at ₹3.10 lakh.

The auction was held on June 19, 1995. Five persons are stated to have participated. R Subramanian, nephew of then hereditary trustee V Subramaniya Iyer, emerged as the highest bidder with an offer of ₹10.17 lakh.

However, the Madras High Court later found serious irregularities in the process.

It noted that objections contemplated under Section 34 of the Tamil Nadu Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Act, 1959 were invited only after the auction. One of the objections also questioned whether the auction valuation was far below the market value.

The HR&CE Commissioner subsequently cancelled the auction proceedings in 1997. The Tamil Nadu government, however, later issued a Government Order in 2002 directing that the sale be given effect to.

Meanwhile, portions of the land changed hands.

A counter-affidavit filed by hereditary trustee S Vaidyanathan in the earlier High Court proceedings stated that the auction purchaser sold the property to 13 persons in 2004. Those purchasers later plotted out the land and sold it to more than 100 persons, many of whom constructed residential houses.

The same affidavit stated that a mosque and an Arabic school run by the local Muslim Jamat had also come up on the disputed land.

Court records also referred to the surrounding streets as being predominantly inhabited by members of the Muslim community.

The HR&CE Department later initiated proceedings under Section 78 of the Act against the occupants of the land.

A status report before the High Court said there were 83 encroachers and that eviction orders had eventually been passed against all of them. Notices were initially served on 81 occupants, giving them the option of becoming tenants of the temple or handing over vacant possession.

The High Court was subsequently informed that 81 occupants had agreed to be treated as tenants. The HR&CE Department then initiated the process of fixing rent and regularising their occupation under Section 34A of the Act.

In its December 2025 judgment, a Division Bench of Justices Anita Sumanth and N Senthilkumar found that the original auction was vitiated by “gross non-compliance” with statutory requirements and possible collusion involving the then trustee.

The High Court stressed that the interests of the temple and deity would prevail over private interests arising from an improperly conducted alienation.

With the Supreme Court now declining to interfere, the Madras High Court ruling and the consequential action concerning the temple land remain undisturbed.

The petitioners were represented by Senior Advocates Huzefa Ahmadi and Sanjay Hegde.

The respondents were represented by Senior Advocates CS Vaidyanathan, Dama Seshadri Naidu and V Chitambaresh with advocates G Balaji, Niranjan Rajagopalan, Abhinav Parthasarathy and NC Vishal.