5 months ago
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The Madras High Court has requested its amici curiae, successful wood related cases, to inspect the tract wherever Marudhamalai Subramaniaswamy Temple medication had decided to instal a 184-feet gangly statue of Lord Murugan astatine the Boluvampatti Forest Range successful the Western Ghats.
A peculiar Division Bench of Justices N. Sathish Kumar and D. Bharatha Chakravarthy, constituted to perceive cases related to forests and wildlife, wanted the amici curiae T. Mohan, Chevanan Mohan, Rahul Balaji and M. Santhanaraman to sojourn the spot and record their study by January 23, 2026.
The inspection was ordered to beryllium carried retired successful the beingness of Special Government Pleader (forests) T. Seenivasan and Special Government Pleader (Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments department) N.R.R. Arun Natarajan aft ascertaining a convenient date.
Last month, the Bench had directed the temple medication to reconsider the determination of the statue since it was reported to beryllium conscionable 137-metre distant from reserve forests. Subsequently, elder counsel R. Shunmugasundaram, representing the HR&CE department, explained the connection successful detail.
The tribunal was told that the Subramaniaswamy Temple successful Marudhamalai was located connected 13 acres of onshore wrong the Boluvampatti wood range. Stating that its past dates backmost to respective 1000 years, the elder counsel said, the temple was built by Kongu Cholas and renovated by the Vijayanagara emperors.
The temple medication had present decided to instal the 184-feet gangly statue of Lord Murugan lone connected 23 cents retired of the interaction country of 4.96 acres disposable astatine the foothills. The remaining 4.73 acres would beryllium near untouched and it could accommodate arsenic galore arsenic 15,000 devotees astatine immoderate constituent of time, the Bench was informed.
Stating that it had been decided to instrumentality one-way postulation astir the statue, Mr. Shunmugasundaram said, astatine contiguous 2,500 devotees sojourn the temple during weekdays and 4,000 during weekends but the numbers were expected to summation to 5,000 and 10,000 respectively aft the installation of the statue.
He said, the temple absorption had besides decided to instrumentality connected lease 7.98 acres of authorities poromboke land, located adjacent Bharathiyar University and wrong a region of 600 metres from the projected statue, for establishing a autobus terminal, conveyance parking installation and truthful on.
Asserting that the statue would not successful immoderate mode impact an elephant corridor which was 7 km away, the elder counsel said, the wood officials astatine a defender bureau functioning astatine the foothills would erect a ticker operation and guarantee that nary inconvenience was caused to the wildlife by the devotees.
