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Ratnagiri, September 17 – The Maharashtra government has taken a shocking decision to convert the ‘class-2’ prize land of Marathwada temples into ‘class-1’ and give it to permanent occupiers. Devotees along with kings donated their land to the temples for the noble purpose of financial management of temples, lighting and annual festivals etc. A demand has been made in Ratnagiri on behalf of the ‘Maharashtra Temple Federation’ that this proposed decision of the government should be canceled as it will permanently weaken the temples financially while the land in this ‘class 2’ cannot be sold to anyone. A statement in this regard was recently given to Deputy Collector (S.P.) Smt. Shubhangi Sathe. On this occasion Sarvashree Sunit Bhave, Mangesh Raut, Devendra Zapdekar, Manohar Vikhare, Kishore Bhute, Santosh Vadgaonkar-Deshpande, Shashikant Jadhav, Santosh Borkar, Manohar More, Sanjay Joshi and other temple trustees and members of Maharashtra Temple Federation were present. In a statement given by the Maharashtra Mandir Federation, it is said that, 1. According to the Hyderabad Inam-Watan Act, land has been provided to shrines, temples, mosques etc. only for worship and service of God through Khidmatmash Inam and Madatmash Inam. Lands which are vested in priests, sevadhars or other third persons on certain terms and conditions which (the occupiers) are bound to observe; But since they do not do that, it is orderly that such agricultural lands are taken away from the possession of those occupiers and taken over by the temple management. Instead of doing this, by supporting the illegal demands of the occupiers, the government has changed the tenure system of the said agricultural land under their possession from ‘Bhoghatdar Class-2’ to ‘Bhoghatdar Class-1’ by giving permanent ownership rights to the occupiers and endangering the religious freedom of that temple. 2. The said decision will be applicable to waqf lands. But it is going to be applicable only to temple lands. Therefore, taking only the lands of Hindu shrines and saying that the religious lands of Muslims will not be touched, clearly shows religious bias and discrimination. Doing so violates the equality clause in the constitution and is also anti-constitutional. 3.- According to the news published in the newspaper ‘Dainik Divya Marathi’ dated 14.08.2024, the information about converting the lands of temples in Marathwada from class two to class one has been published. It has also been reported that the construction and sale of 56,000 hectares of Inam land of Class II temple has been cleared. From this, the government’s role regarding Devasthan Inam land is not seen in the interest of the Devasthan. 4. There have been incidents of illegal transfer of Devasthan Inam lands in Maharashtra for the past few years. Various court cases are also going on in this regard. In that case, earlier unauthorized transfer/transactions of temple lands by taking advantage of the Government’s decision will become regular. This will cause a huge financial loss to the shrines. Also, encroachment on the land of temples will start in future. This is going to create a big crisis in front of the temples. 5. The Supreme Court has decided that the responsibility of protecting the agricultural land belonging to the temple / religious place of worship is also that of the state government. In such a situation, the role of the government to take decisions regarding agricultural lands against the interest of shrines is inconsistent with the law and the judgment of the Supreme Court. 6. The government should take a decision in the interest of the temple and the devotees of the temple; The statement has also warned that otherwise all the temple trustees, priests, temple representatives of Maharashtra will have to take to the streets and protest against this in a legal way.
