SC notice to Maharashtra, Trimbakeshwar temple trust

New Delhi, June 19 (IANS) The Supreme Court has sought a response from Maharashtra and the Trimbakeshwar Sansthan Trust on a plea for increasing the number of trustees from the general public to six with two seats reserved for females in the Board of Trustees of the historic Trimbakeshwar Shiva Temple in Maharashtra.

A vacation bench of Justice S. Abdul Nazeer and Justice Indu Malhotra on Monday issued notice to the state and the trust along with state's Charity Commissioner and Trimbakeshwar Municipal Council and sought their response on the plea while posting the matter for hearing in July.

The plea filed by one of the trustees of the temple, Lalita Sandip Shinde, sought to increase the number of general public trustees to six from four so that the participation of public in the administration of the trust is in majority.

At present, the trust has four members from the general public, two ex-officio members nominated by the District Judge and the Chief Executive Officer of the municipal corporation and one member each from Tungars, Purohits and Pujaris.

The petition, filed through advocate Anand Misra, said the people from public are in minority in the trust and that the representative of the District Judge is unconnected with the public life.

The petition stated: "The petition prays inter alia for a direction to increase persons appointed from the public to six with two seats reserved for females and that in place of a Civil Judge nominated by District Judge, the District Collector be made ex-officio trustee and President of trust to make it a proper representative body."

It added that replacing District Judge nominee by District Collector would make the trust President better accessible to general public and would make it easy for the trust to coordinate with other government departments.

Asking for reservation of seats for female candidates in the quota allotted to general public, the plea contended that the move would result in better gender representation of the trust and would go on a long way towards gender equality in management of affairs of temple and trust.

"Issue directions commanding Respondents No. 1 (state of Maharashtra) and No. 2 (Charity Commissioner) to modify the scheme of management of Board of Trustee of Respondent No. 4 (Trimbakeshwar Sansthan Trust) inter alia increasing the number of trustee from general public from four to six with two seats reserve for females in the interest of justice," the petition stated.

Trimbakeshwar is an ancient Hindu temple in the town of Trimbak in Nashik district. It is dedicated to Lord Shiva and is one of the twelve Jyotirlingas.