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by Admin
14 December 2025 5:24 PM
“Not for Nothing the Civil Court Recognized His Right” – In a landmark judgment protecting hereditary religious rights, the Karnataka High Court quashed three successive administrative orders that had permitted a rival claimant to perform the sacred Karaga ritual at the Dharmarayaswamy Temple in Anekal. Justice M. Nagaprasanna, delivering the verdict held that the petitioner and his family were the hereditary archaks of the temple, and this right had been recognized by a civil court as far back as 1983 and upheld by the High Court and the Supreme Court. The Court came down heavily on the Tahsildar for repeatedly overriding binding judicial findings in favor of an outsider.
“The right of the petitioner and his family is being trampled upon by the Tahsildar at the behest of the sixth respondent. Not for nothing that the first appellate court recognized the right of the petitioner, and not for nothing orders have been passed by the Division Bench of this Court,” the High Court declared, while setting aside the Tahsildar’s orders issued in 2019, 2022 and 2025.
The dispute arose over the question of who would carry the Karaga during the Mahotsava scheduled on April 12, 2025. Arjunappa, now 83, claimed that his family had performed the ritual for generations. Due to his old age, he nominated his sons Ramesh or Manoj Kumar to carry on the tradition. However, the Tahsildar, relying on a request from one Chandrappa, an outsider not from the archak lineage, allowed him to perform the ritual.
“This Court cannot countenance the repeated and deliberate bypassing of judicial decisions by the revenue authorities,” observed Justice Nagaprasanna. “The Tahsildar has generated litigation after litigation by passing orders at his whim and fancy.”
The Court recalled that the petitioner’s rights were conclusively adjudicated in R.A. No. 46 of 1983, affirmed by the High Court in R.S.A. No. 412 of 1984, and the same had attained finality. In stark contrast, Chandrappa was “nowhere in the picture” during the earlier litigations and only surfaced in 2011.
Despite this, the Tahsildar had passed a series of orders permitting Chandrappa to perform the ritual, citing reasons such as the physical unfitness of Ramesh and objections by local groups. The High Court rejected these justifications outright.
“These factors cannot throw the right of the petitioner or his children, who have been agitating their rights from 1983 and have secured orders at the hands of the civil court, Division Bench and the Apex Court, to the winds,” the Court observed.
The judgment further noted that orders allowing Karaga performance on a rotational basis were not only contrary to law but had already been quashed in previous rounds of litigation. Yet the Tahsildar continued to issue similar orders under the pretext of community harmony.
“It is un-understandable how the Tahsildar has sought to play with the emotions of the devotees by generating litigation and passing orders contrary to the earlier directions,” the Court noted with disapproval.
On the question of who would perform the Karaga in 2025, the Court directed that Ramesh, son of Arjunappa, be permitted to perform the ritual, subject to the condition that he does so responsibly and without incident.
“Any untoward incident, any harm caused to the public during Karaga owing to performance of Karaga by Ramesh… would be his sole responsibility and may result in losing the right to perform Karaga in future,” the Court cautioned.
The High Court directed the jurisdictional police to provide adequate protection to ensure the ritual is carried out peacefully.
Chandrappa’s counter-petition seeking a direction to allow him to perform the Karaga was dismissed.
Concluding its judgment, the Court held: “The Tahsildar could not have passed an order directing performance of Karaga by rotation and given it to the sixth respondent who, by his own admission, is not in the lineage of archaks of the temple.”
Date of Judgment: April 9, 2025
