Chennai: In the setback to the state government’s plan to melt and monelify the ‘not used’ gold which was donated to the temples, Madras High Court on Thursday held the HR department & CE from deciding about things that said they had to wait for the appointment of the temple.
However, the first head bench of Sanjib Banerjee and Justice P D Audikesavalu, said the Jury Committee of the three members appointed by the state government to monitor the process could continue the gold inventory and other materials donated to the temples.
The court issued a order after being satisfied that the SDM & CE Commissioner could not Suo Motu decided on the golden temple gold and such proposals could come only from the temple supervisor.
Two applicants, M Saravanan and V Gopala Krishnan, have challenged the decision to melt temple jewelry and deposit gold at the bank.
Responding to the application, Advocate-General R Shunmugasundam told the court that advertising had been issued to appoint the guardian for the temple and the exercise would take four to six weeks to be resolved.
Show that the state has started the implementation of the guardian in the temples, Shunmugasundaram said: “The work of carrying out inventory offers in temples and temples can continue, but the decision whether to melt the jewelry that has been offered in temples will be taken after the guardian The mandate is installed in the relevant temple.
“On October 12, the country told the court that the scheme to melt the gold jewelry donated to the temples for monetization was not new and had been around since 1977.” So far, around 5 lakh grams of gold jewelry has been Melting and stored in various nationalization banks that take around Rs 11 Crore as interest, “said AG.