The Kapaleeswarar Karpagambal temple, Mylapore. File.
| Photo Credit: B. Jothi Ramalingam
The Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR&CE) department on Monday (March 16, 2026) informed the Madras High Court that the Chennai-based, 132-year-old company Amrutanjan Limited, popular for its pain relief balm across the country, was in occupation of 14 grounds of the Mylapore Kapaleeswarar Temple land on Luz Church Road till 2018. The company has to pay arrears of ₹9.74 crore towards rent.
Appearing before the first Division Bench of Chief Justice Sushrut Arvind Dharmadhikari and Justice G. Arul Murugan, Special Government Pleader (HR&CE) N.R.R. Arun Natarajan said, the temple authorities had initiated action under the Revenue Recovery Act of 1890 to recover the rental arrears. He also said, there was no direct landlord-tenant relationship between the temple and Amrutanjan.
The SGP said, the temple had given 14 grounds and 910 square feet of its land on a 99-year lease to one P.R. Sundera Iyer on August 28, 1901. Then, the lease was given for a monthly rent of ₹1,400. Iyer, in turn, had assigned the lease rights to a woman named Ramayee Ammal from whom Amrutanjan Limited had obtained the rights and continued to occupy the lands on payment of ₹1,400 a month for decades together.
He said, Amrutanjan continued to be in occupation even after the expiry of the 99-year lease period on August 27, 2000. Though notices were issued in 2001 and 2004, the company did not vacate the property. Hence, in 2005, a committee constituted for fixing fair rent for temple properties fixed the monthly rent for the 14 acres of land in the heart of Chennai city at ₹3.3 lakh per month and demanded the rent from 2001.
Immediately, the company filed a writ petition in 2005 to declare Section 34A(5) of the Tamil Nadu HR&CE Act of 1959 as illegal, ultravires and unenforceable, since it requires any person filing a statutory appeal before the HR&CE Commissioner to deposit the claimed rental amount in the temple’s bank account. The writ petition was dismissed by a single judge of the High Court in 2025 and hence the present writ appeal, Mr. Natarajan said.
He also brought it to the notice of the Division Bench that the company continued to be in possession of the property till 2018. Therefore, the single judge had directed the HR&CE department as well as the temple administration to recover the rental arrears. After hearing him as well as the counsel for Amrutanjan, the Chief Justice said, there was nothing on record to prove that the company had indeed filed the statutory appeal.
He said, Amrutanjan had failed to produce an acknowledgement to prove that the statutory appeal was filed before the HR&CE Commissioner or to prove that the officer had insisted on depositing the demanded rent as a pre-condition to entertain the appeal. Wondering what necessitated the company to challenge the validity of a legal provision, the Chief Justice’s Bench dismissed the writ appeal.
“As rightly observed by the learned single judge, if the plea of the appellant that the condition mandating pre-deposit is onerous is accepted, then the religious institutions, which heavily depend on such rental incomes, would not be able to maintain the properties and fulfill the religious duties,” the Division Bench observed.
Published – March 17, 2026 03:37 am IST
