Team Herald
PANJIM: The Shree Ramnath Damodar Saunsthan temple in Zambaulim is in the news for all the wrong reasons after the Sanguem Taluka Mamlatdar recommended the dissolution of the temple’s managing committee for not presenting the budget within the legal deadline. It has been alleged that the temple committee incurred huge expenses without presenting the budget.
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Sanguem Mamlatdar Siddharth Prabhu has made the recommendation to the South Goa Collector following a directive from the High Court of Bombay at Goa. Prasad Govind Ghode and Jayant Kamat Bambolkar had filed a writ petition in the High Court, seeking directions to the Mamlatdar, who is the administrator of devalaya, to dissolve the managing committee for not presenting
the budget.
The petitioners had stated that the managing committee had not submitted the budget for the financial year 2024-25 by November 5, 2023, which was the deadline. They had alleged that the managing committee made spent a huge amount of money from the temple funds without presenting the budget. The current managing committee is headed by Manjunath S Pai Dukle, secretary Amit Hegde, attorney Saish Hegde, and treasurer Ganadish Shenvi Kunde.
The High Court had asked the Mamlatdar to decide on the proceedings before the end of December 2024. The Mamlatdar’s recommendation to the Collector has been made as per Article 44 of the Devasthan Regulations Act, governing Hindu temples in the State.
In July 2022, the High Court had directed the Sanguem Mamlatdar to declare the results of the elections held to elect the new managing committee of the temple and to hand over the charge to the new managing committee within five days from the declaration of results.
Though the elections were held in March 2022, the results could not be declared as some of the Mahazans filed a writ petition challenging the decision of the managing committee to delete the names of 2,352 Mahazans out of a total of 3,084 from the list of capable Mahazans entitled to vote to elect the new managing committee. The names were deleted on the ground that the Mahazans were not permanent residents of Goa.
