Alappuzha: The Sree Narayana Vaidika Samithy, a wing of priests under the SNDP Yogam, has decided to move the Supreme Court against the Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) decision not to appoint a non-Brahmin priest to the post of Sabarimala chief priest. It had recently rejected the application of C.V. Vishnu Narayanan, a priest from Kottayam, on the ground that he does not belong to the Malayala Brahamin category.
The Samithy says the rejection memo issued to Mr Narayanan on October 4 was contempt of court.
Mr E.K. Lalan, president of the Samithy, which has at least 3,000 members, said they were collecting funds from the members to meet the legal fees. “We are fighting for the rights of all those who deserve to be priests.,” he said. “Priesthood is not the monopoly of any denomination. This was made clear by the Supreme Court verdicts in 2002 and 2014. But the TDB has reserved the priests’ posts in Sabarimala for Malayala Brahmins in violation of the orders.”
Mr Narayanan said the TDB had never responded to his demands. The application of Mr. Narayanan was rejected last year also and he had approached the High Court which appointed an amicus curiae in October, 2017. But the amicus curiae has not submitted a report so far.
The Supreme Court judgment in 2002 (N.Adhityan v TDB) had upheld the appointment of non-Brahmin priests to temples. The devaswom secretary had also issued an order saying that appointment of priests should be done without considering clan and caste of the candidate. In a case in 2015, a Supreme Court bench comprising Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice N.V. Ramana had refused to strike down an order of the Tamil Nadu government allowing the posting of non-Brahmin priests in temples.
Following this, a a non-Brahmin priest was appointed to the Meenakshi Amman temple in July this year with the conditions including that he could be suspended if he violated the ‘Agama’ rules, a manual for worship of the deity, rituals and construction of temples.
