TIRUPATI: Chief Justice of AP High Court, Justice Anil Ramesh Dave has refused to vacate the stay on take over of Mandir lands for Indiramma Pathakam. He had stated that the Government cannot take away Mandir lands for its projects and should find lands from what is available with the Government.

The Chief Justice further ordered regarding the Government's request for Mandir lands for irrigation projects that these will be examined separately and till then, no decision should be taken by the government.

'We will wait for the next move of the Government and will fight tooth and nail to prevent it from taking Mandir lands under the pretext of irrigation projects,' said a spokesperson of the Mandir Land Protection Committee.

Should there be a very genuine reason to give up at some point, we will ensure that the government provides alternate and equally good lands to these Mandirs from its assets. In early 2006, the government of Andhra Pradesh under Samuel Rajasekhar decided that they should now legally and brazenly strip the Hindu Mandirs of its depleting landed assets in his continuing designs against the mandir properties.

Samuel ordered through the District Collectors that Mandir lands be used for his pet project - Indiramma Pathakam - land for landless poor. The collectors started getting into the act. Kamal Kumar Ji, a Save Mandir Properties volunteer moved the AP High Court to obtain a stay on the order.

Before this, he visited close to 90 villages where lands of various Mandirs were proposed to be usurped and distributed in the name of late Indiramma (Indira Gandhi). His passionate talk to these villagers yielded positive results and the villagers refused to construct houses on the Mandir lands, even if allotted by the Government.

The villagers were determined not to accept Mandir lands for housing projects. Armed with these papers Kamal ji obtained a stay in the AP High Court against the Samuel Government's move to strip Mandirs of its endowed properties.

Kamal Ji had also obtained information under the RTI Act on the Mandir lands taken away so far in the East and West Godavari Districts, the compensation paid or promised to these Mandirs by the Government. These were placed before the Court.

The High Court of AP questioned the Samuel government on the lands already taken over by the Government and the status of compensation and the reasons why many of them closed down for want of regular income, on which there was no reply filed by the government till date.

''We have demanded the government not for any compensation in terms of money, but by providing alternate fertile government lands to these Mandirs, for such of those Mandir lands already usurped by the government,'' reported Kamalji.

The government instantly changed colors. And this time filed 50 individual writ petitions, one for each project in the AP High Court pleading the vacation of stay, so the Samuel government can go ahead speedily in rendering Hindu Mandirs naked.

The twist in the tale is that this time land for Indiramma Pathakam was downplayed and a new pretext of land for irrigation projects like Polavaram and Pulichintala were highlighted. Mandir Land Protection Committee now pleads with all reasonable Hindus as well as other members of Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly to come to the rescue of this legitimate struggle of the people for protection of their faith and devotion to the values and heritage by asking the government to be just and righteous.