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Karnataka to set up sub-panel to look into Datta Peeta issue
JC Madhuswamy, Karnataka’s minister for minor irrigation, law and parliamentary affairs on Tuesday said that the sub-committee under his chairmanship would look at the next course of action in the issue.
The Karnataka Cabinet on Tuesday decided to set up a sub-committee to look into the Datta Peeta issue, a cave shrine in Chikmagalur district’s Baba Budangiri mountains, in which the high court had directed the state government to appoint a Hindu priest for the temple.
JC Madhuswamy, Karnataka’s minister for minor irrigation, law and parliamentary affairs on Tuesday said that the sub-committee under his chairmanship would look at the next course of action in the issue.
“What decision the high court has given, the pros and cons and how to proceed in the matter will be discussed in this sub-committee,” Madhuswamy said on Tuesday in Bengaluru.
Revenue Minister R Ashoka, energy minister V Sunil Kumar and Minister for Muzarai, Haj & Wakf Shashikala Jolle will be the members of the sub-committee, he added.
The shrine has been the centre of Hindutva movements in the district with pro-saffron outfits demanding that a Hindu priest be appointed and correct the wrongs done by the Siddaramaiah-led state government between 2013-18.
BJP’s national general secretary and legislator from Chickmagalur, CT Ravi, last week, lauded the HC’s order and accused Siddaramaiah of weaving a web of lies to instate a Muslim maulvi as the priest of the shrine that dates back several centuries with conflicting accounts of its history. The shrine is on the Chandra Drona Range, some of the highest between the Himalayas and the Nilgiris, and history has it that it was a sufi Saint Baba Budan who first brought coffee seeds from Yemen that were introduced in these mountain ranges for the first time.
The controversy is around the Peetha which, according to court documents, was a major Muzarai temple under the Mysore Religious and Charitable Institutions Act, 1927 but was taken over by the state Wakf board on April 6 1973, just before Emergency was imposed in the country. This was contested in 1978.
The order stated that the Endowment commissioner’s report had rightly recorded that Shri Dattatreya is well known as son of Sage Athri by his virtuous wife Anasuya and embodiment of Hindu trinity, the Gods, Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva.
The Endowment commissioners report was submitted on March 10 2010 before the Supreme Court, suggesting that a Hindu Archak or priest be appointed by the management committee of the shrine.
The issue had gained traction in the run up to the 2018 assembly elections in Karnataka with the BJP accusing Siddaramaiah of pandering to the minorities vote bank.
The Karnataka HC said that the order by the state government was unsustainable in law because it was contrary to the Supreme Court’s order that the state cabinet would take a decision in this regard considering the pros and cons of the matter but instead delegated it to a high level committee.
The HC also listed five other reasons which included that the high level committee was not free from bias.
In its sixth reason, the HC said that the 2018 order “infringes the right of both communities guaranteed under Article 25 of the Constitution by preventing Hindus from performing pooja as per their faith and compelling the Mujawar to offer puja contrary to his faith.”
