Uttarakhand To Withdraw Char Dham Devasthanam Board Act After Months Of Protests

The Act brought four revered Hindu shrines of Badrinath, Kedarnath, Gangotri, Yamunotri and 49 other temples under the purview of a shrine board.

New Delhi: After months of protests by Char Dham Teerth-Purohit, Hak Hakookdhari, Mahapanchayat Samiti and other organisations, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said the government would scrap the Chardham Devasthanam Board.

"After studying all aspects of the issue, we have decided to withdraw the Chardham Devasthanam Board Act," PTI quoted Pushkar Singh Dhami as saying. "The decision to abolish the Devasthanam Board is taken on the basis of the feedback received by Teerth Purohit, Haq Hookdhari, people's representative and report of a high-level committee," he said.

The Act brought four revered Hindu shrines of Badrinath, Kedarnath, Gangotri, Yamunotri and 49 other temples under the purview of a shrine board. The law allowed the board to frame policies and sanction expenditure.

Calling it an infringement of their traditional rights over the temples, priests had been demanding scrapping of the board ever since its creation in 2019. The priests were protesting against the legislation under the banner of the Mahapanchayat.

The Uttarakhand Assembly had passed the Char Dham Devasthanam Management Board Bill in 2019 when Trivendra Singh Rawat was the chief minister. The development comes ahead of Uttarakhand elections in 2022.

The Mahapanchayat, in its meeting on November 20, had decided to organise a sit-in protest against the Devasthanam Act in Badrinath, Kedarnath, Gangotri and Yamunotri Dham. Kedarnath Teerth Purohit Samaj had earlier claimed that former chief minister Tirath Singh Rawat had assured to reconsider the board.

Uttarakhand High Court had dismissed two pleas challenging the validity of the law. One of the pleas was filed by BJP leader Subramanian Swamy.