E-Paper
Retired Tirumala priests back into service after TTD restores their jobs for life
Hyderabad The Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD), which manages the Tirumala temple in Andhra Pradesh’s Chittoor district, issued orders restoring the services of several priests for their life-term on Saturday
Hyderabad The Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD), which manages the Tirumala temple in Andhra Pradesh’s Chittoor district, issued orders restoring the services of several priests for their life-term on Saturday.
The order restores the services of former temple head priest Dr A V Ramana Deekshitulu, who was forced to retire three years back on attaining the age of superannuation at 65 years, a spokesman of the TTD said.
Deekshitulu confirmed to HT that he had received the orders and he would be taking over as the head priest of the temple again. “Along with me, at least 10 others of the Tirumala temple and other associated temples like Lord Padmavathi temple at Tiruchanur and Govindarajulu Swamy temple at Tirupati, have also got back their jobs,” he said.
On May 16, 2018, the TTD, for the first time, introduced retirement rule for the priests, according to which all those who attained the age of 65 years would have to retire. The rule was brought in at the TTD board meeting following serious allegations of corruption in the temple administration made by Deekshitulu the previous day.
Deekshitulu had alleged that the administrators of the temple were siphoning off the temple money and destroying its sanctity and demanded an open audit into the donations received and expenditure incurred by the TTD. He also alleged that precious ancient jewellery of the temple went missing and demanded that the TTD be brought under the purview of the Right to Information Act.
Along with Deekshitulu, three other priests – Narasimha Deekshitulu, Srinivasa Murthy Deekshitulu and Narayana Deekshitulu – were also forced to retire. In their place, the TTD appointed four other priests.
After the YSR Congress government came to power, chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy had done away with the rule of retirement for priests, following a high court order of December 2018, which said the retirement rule would not be applicable to the temple priests.
The Jagan government issued an order in October 2019 stating that there would be no retirement for the priests of various temples on the basis of age. “A priest shall continue in the post till he is physically fit to perform his archakatvam (priesthood) duties,” the order said.
However, the order was not made applicable to TTD, as it is governed by its own rules. As a result, Deekshitulu could not get back his post. Instead, the TTD appointed him as Agama advisor and also honorary chief priest.
Now, with the new order, Deekshitulu will be re-joining the duties as head priest of the Tirumala temple. Of the remaining three main priests of the temple, Srinivasa Murthy died of Covid-19 on July 20 last year. The remaining two would also be getting back their jobs in the temple.
