Madras High Court Quashes Tamil Nadu Order Diverting Temple Funds for Marriage Halls

The Madras High Court has struck down a Tamil Nadu Government Order allowing temple funds to be used for constructing marriage halls.

A bench of Justices SM Subramaniam and G Arul Murugan held that such use violated the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Act, 1959, which restricts surplus funds to religious or charitable purposes.

The Court observed that Hindu marriage, though a sacrament, also has contractual elements and cannot be classified as a religious purpose.

Temple donations, it stressed, must be used strictly for temple maintenance, festivals, and rituals, not for commercial ventures like marriage halls.