State cannot be donee of temple land it administers, Supreme Court voids 2017 gift deed

The Supreme Court has struck down a 2017 gift deed by which land belonging to a Hindu temple was gifted to the Government of Tamil Nadu, holding that the State, acting as statutory custodian of religious endowment property, cannot make itself the donee of that very property. The land had been placed under the Tamil Nadu Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Act, 1959, which authorises specific, limited modes of alienating endowment property — exchange, lease and sale under Sections 34, 34-A and 41 — each requiring that the transaction serve the trust's own interest. K. Ramalingam and others challenged the arrangement before the Supreme Court after the State had accepted the land as a gift from the temple's trustees.

The Court held the gift deed void under Section 41(1) of the 1959 Act, since a gift to the government is not among the modes the Act permits, and its registration void under Section 22-A of the Registration Act, 1908, which bars registration of documents executed in contravention of public policy. It explained that the State's role is that of a custodian regulating endowment property for the trust's benefit, never a beneficiary of it, and administrative convenience cannot justify departing from the statute. The State was directed to pay market-rate lease rent for its continued use of the land, with arrears and costs.