The Supreme Court has declared void a gift of one acre of temple land in Erode district to the Tamil Nadu government for a Taluk Office. It has held that the State cannot accept temple property as a gift, because as custodian of religious properties, it cannot be their owner. Even so, since a Taluk Office has been built on the land with public funds, the court has not cancelled the lease and has raised the temple’s rent to Rs 31,000 a month.
Under Section 41(1) of the Tamil Nadu HR&CE Act, 1959, a gift of inam land granted for the support of a religious institution is null and void, and the Government’s power to sanction transactions does not extend to a gift, so no sanction can validate it. The State acts as a custodian and regulator of temple properties and not as their owner, so a Revenue functionary cannot accept a gift of temple land, whatever the public purpose. A trustee, permanent or temporary, must manage trust property with ordinary prudence, and a gratuitous transfer is inconsistent with this duty. A registration that violates Section 22-A of the Registration Act, as applicable in Tamil Nadu, has no legal effect.
The land, about 1 acre 10 cents in Kodumudi village, belonged to the Nagapalayam Mariamman-Ponnachiamman Temple. On 30 August 2017, a temporary trustee gifted it to the Government for a Taluk Office, and the Tehsildar accepted it. The Madras High Court in 2019 dismissed the hereditary trustee’s challenge, holding that Section 34 of the Tamil Nadu HR&CE Act, 1959 does not list “gift”, and that it was a disputed question whether the Act applied. Devotees then came to the Supreme Court. Justices P.S. Narasimha and Alok Aradhe noted that the State’s own 2022 affidavit stated that the land was inam land granted to the deity, so Section 41 and not Section 34 applied. Section 41(1) declares any gift of inam land null and void, and its proviso allows the Government to sanction other transactions but “not being a gift”. So the gift could never be validated by any sanction, and was void from the start. The registration also violated Section 22-A of the Registration Act, as applicable in Tamil Nadu, which bars registration without sanction from the competent authority, and no such sanction could have been granted. The court added that, even under Section 34, the gift would be void since there was no Commissioner’s sanction, and a gratuitous gift cannot be an act of ordinary prudence by a trustee under Section 28. It criticised the State for defending the gift for over four years, until the Court asked the Endowments Secretary to file an affidavit. The court directed the State to pay arrears of rent from 8 March 2019 at Rs 31,000 a month, worked out at 225% of the adjoining market value plus the depreciated building value, to be refixed every three years, and to pay Rs 1 lakh as costs to the temple within eight weeks.
Citation: K. Ramalingam & Ors. v. Government of Tamil Nadu rep. by its Secretary & Ors., Civil Appeals arising out of SLP (C) Nos. 20051-20052 of 2019, Supreme Court (Justices Pamidighantam Sri Narasimha and Alok Aradhe), decided on 16.10.2026 | 2026 INSC 1144
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