Madras High Court Rejects PIL Against Chanting Mantras In Tamil

Under the Annai Tamil Archani scheme, devotees could opt for the chanting of hymns in Tamil instead of Sanskrit by priests while performing pujas inside the sanctum sanctorum of the temples. 

Madras High Court (File picture)

Chennai: The Madras High Court on Friday rejected the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) seeking the intervention of the court to direct the Tamil Nadu government to withdraw the ‘Annai Tamil Archanai Scheme’. 

Under the scheme, devotees could opt for the chanting of hymns in Tamil instead of Sanskrit by priests while performing pujas inside the sanctum sanctorum of the temples. 

According to a report from the Hindu, Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice PD Audikesavalu rejected the case as the issue was not an unsettled question of law anymore. The court further said that another division bench in March 2008 dismissed a batch of cases filed in 1998 and said that the Agama Sastra does not prohibit chanting of mantras in Tamil.

Quoting the bench, the report said that the choice of wanting the mantras to be recited in Sanskrit or Tamil was with the devotees. The bench further criticized the litigants for making it look like the God could not understand Tamil, the report added. 

Even though the petitioner, Rangarajan Narasimhan of Srirangam, had cited another judgement which rejected a writ petition filed for reciting mantras in Tamil in 2008, the court explained that the 2008 petition was dismissed only because the petitioner had insisted that mantras should be chanted only in Tamil and not in any other language. The court further said that it could not compel the use of a particular language in religious institutions, according to the report.