Within a fortnight after the Supreme Court handed over the management of Gokarna Mahabaleshwara Temple to an overseeing committee, the Karnataka government has appointed members to the eight-member panel which will be headed by former Supreme Court judge Justice B.N. Srikrishna.
As per the apex court order the Karnataka government, in its order dated May 4, appointed two eminent persons— Muralidhara Prabhu and Vidwan Parameshwar Subrahmanya Bhatta Markandey, two upadhivathas of Gokarna temple—Dattatreya Nayana Bhatta Hiregange and Mahabala Upadhya, the deputy commissioner and superintendent of Uttara Kannada as the members and assistant commissioner of Kumta as the secretary of the committee.
With the SC judgement, more than a decade-long legal battle between the temple priests (hereditary trustees) and the Ramachandrapura Mutt, Hosanagara has come to an end.
According to sources, till 2008, there was no dispute over the Mahabaleshwar temple being classified as a public temple under the Bombay Public Trust Act, 1950. Even in 2005, when the Ramachandrapura Mutt filed a writ petition before the Karnataka High Court claiming ownership over 10 prominent temples and seeking their denotification, the Mahabaleshwara temple was not one of them. However, the legal dispute began with incumbent pontiff of Ramachandrapura Mutt, Sri Raghaveshwara Swami staking claim to the temple by filing a writ petition in 2008.
It may be recalled that the Karnataka government appointed an administrator to the temple on November 17, 2006, which was challenged in court by one Balachandra Dixit, the sole trustee of the temple. After the high court ordered status quo, the previous Yediyurappa government, in August 2008, removed the Mahabaleshwara temple from the list of notified institutions and transferred its administration to Ramachandrapura Mutt.
However, the Shree Kshetra Gokarna Hita Rakshana Samithi moved the High Court challenging the handing over of the temple.
Almost a decade later, on August 10, 2018, the high court ruled that the transfer was illegal, stating that the state government had no powers to denotify the temple. The Mutt filed an SLP before the Supreme Court challenging the high court order.
On April 19, 2021, the SC, in modification of all its earlier interim orders, directed that an overseeing committee headed by former Supreme Court judge Justice B. N. Srikrishna should handle the affairs of the Gokarna Mahabaleshwar temple. The apex court passed the interim order in the appeal challenging the Karnataka High Court's judgement quashing the state government's order to hand over the Mahabaleshwara temple to Ramachandra the Mutt.
The interim order passed by the three-member bench of CJI S.A. Bobde, Justice Bopanna and Justice Ramasubramanian has directed the appellant-Mutt to handover the management of the temple to the overseeing committee within 15 days.
