The government has acquired large temples, claiming that the management of the temples is not proper. Just as the government has established a ‘Waqf Board’ for the protection of mosques and madrassas, why doesn’t the government establish a ‘Hindu Board’ for the protection and management of temples and hand over them to them instead of acquiring the temples? Supreme Court advocate Vishnu Shankar Jain, who fought for ‘Gyanvapi’ in Kashi, asked this question in a press conference in Jalgaon.
Jain also demanded that officials related to Hinduism such as Shankaracharya, Mahamandaleshwar, Mathadhipathi etc. should be given the status of ‘Public Servant’ in this board.
Advocate Jain further said, in 1995, the then central government passed an extra-constitutional law called ‘Waqf Act’ to appease Muslims. Based on that, Waqf Board was given the status of ‘Public Servant’. Except Muslims, no other community has been given the status of ‘Public Servant’.
After the Waqf Board claims any property, the property is surveyed. Thereby the Wakf Board is empowered to register the property directly with the Registrar as ‘Wakf Property’. There is no provision to inform the owner of that land while doing so. In 2005, the Taj Mahal was declared a Waqf property by the Waqf Board.
National spokesperson of Hindu Janajagruti Samiti Ramesh Shinde said, Temples are being allotted to politicians to please them. Four lakh temples of Hindus have been acquired by the government. Earlier, a corporation was given to entertain politicians who did not get a place in the cabinet. Now those leaders are given a temple.
Thousands of acres of Pandharpur temple land acquired by the government was not under the control of the government. Due to the petition of Hindu Vidhigya Parishad and the efforts of Hindu Janajagruti Samiti, 1 thousand 021 acres of this land has been returned to the temple. The further fight of the committee on this is going on.
The donation box of the temple at Tuljapur was being auctioned publicly. In this there has been corruption of crores of rupees of gold and silver accumulated in the donation box. The inquiry committee appointed by the court has held 16 officers, employees and auctioneers guilty. The then government has taken an inappropriate stand that no action should be taken against these corrupt people. Shinde also warned that the committee will fight against this and no corrupt person will be spared.