The state authorities on Tuesday appointed retired IAS officer PS Vasthrad because the administrator of the Chitradurga Sri Jagadguru Murugharajendra (SJM) mutt, which got here into the limelight after its pontiff Shivamurthy Sharanaru was arrested on September 2 on Pocso expenses.
Distinguished Lingayat leaders and elders had held a gathering and urged the state authorities to nominate a brand new pontiff and administrator to the mutt after the arrest of Sharanaru, who’s in judicial custody for 3 months.
The mutt has a historical past of greater than 400 years.
The leaders, led by former minister H Ekanthaiah, took the delegation to chief minister Basavaraj Bommai in October and shaped a nine-member committee to take up a authorized battle if the state authorities didn’t appoint an administrator.
Bommai, on November 6, directed the Chitradurga deputy commissioner to submit a report on the SJM mutt inside every week.
On November 10, DC Divya Prabhu submitted a 70-page report in a sealed cowl to the state authorities, wherein she advisable the appointment of an administrator for the sleek functioning of the mutt because the pontiff is in jail.
The state advocate common, in response to the state authorities’s letter in search of authorized opinion, stated that underneath clause 162 of the Structure, the state has the precise to guard the property of the mutt within the curiosity of most of the people and hundreds of workers.
“The Lingayat group welcomes the transfer of the state authorities. We met chief minister Bommai in Bengaluru together with the delegation, and now, the state head has responded positively,” Ekanthaiah stated.
“The state should shield crores of rupees value of property of the mutt because the property belongs to the group,” he added.
The police have filed two separate instances in opposition to Sharanaru underneath the Pocso Act after three minor ladies complained of sexual harassment and rape.
The Chitradurga rural police have additionally submitted a cost sheet within the first Pocso case to the courtroom. The investigation is happening within the second POCSO case wherein two minor ladies alleged rape in opposition to the seer.
In the meantime, the Mysuru-based NGO, Odanadi, has filed a criticism with the state kids’s rights fee (CRC) for violating norms of the juvenile justice act by SJM mutt in working the adoption centre. The NGO additionally alleged that the 22 minor orphans within the mutt had been lacking after the arrest of the pontiff.
The CRC ordered an intensive probe in opposition to the SJM mutt. In a separate order to the district kids’s welfare committee (CWC), Chitradurga extra DC Balakrishna instructed to conduct an intensive probe in opposition to the mutt for violation of norms and pointers in sheltering and defending minor ladies.
The mutt has properties value over ₹1,000 crores and is working greater than 30 instructional establishments, together with medical and engineering schools within the state. Greater than 4000 workers are working underneath the distinguished Lingayat mutt.