The Supreme Court Monday revived a bunch of petitions challenging the constitutional validity of laws that regulate the administration of Hindu temples and religious endowments in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and Puducherry.

A bench of Justices B V Nagarathna and S C Sharma said it will hear the petitions, the first of which was filed by the late Swami Dayanand Saraswati in 2012, starting July 24.

Hearing the petitions last year, the apex court noted that the pleas challenge the Hindu Religious Institutions and Charitable Endowments Act of multiple states and said the high courts should hear them first, as local issues may be involved.

“Having regard to the challenge made to various provisions of the Hindu Religious Institutions and Charitable Endowments Act of the respective states, we find that the petitioners could be permitted to approach the respective High Courts to assail the said provisions. It is noted that in these petitions, the provisions under challenge are not only pertaining to the Tamil Nadu Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Act, 1959, but also the Puducherry Act of 1932, as well as the Andhra Pradesh Charitable and Hindu Religious Endowments Act, 1987,” the bench had said in the April 1, 2025, order.

“We find that the better way of ventilating the grievances of the petitioners herein is to assail the provisions of the respective Acts before the respective jurisdictional High Courts, so as to enable the High Courts to better appreciate the dimensions of challenge of the provisions of the respective Acts. In the circumstances, we dispose of these petitions by reserving liberty to the petitioners herein to file their writ petitions before the respective High Courts,” it added.

What review petition said

The petitions were then filed seeking review of this order.

The review petition filed through Advocate Suvidutt Sundaram in the main matter, Dayananda Saraswati Swamiji (Dead) and Others Vs State of Tamil Nadu and Others, pointed out that there is a “fundamental error apparent on the face of the record” in that the SC order says that the scheme of the three laws “may” be distinct. The Dayanand Saraswati plea had challenged the laws in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Puducherry.

Terming the “assumption…incorrect”, the review petition said the court deciding to send them back after the matter has remained pending before it for the last 13 years is a “manifest miscarriage” of justice. “In doing so, the Court failed to appreciate that the right to approach this Court is itself a fundamental right under Article 32; a right rendered meaningless by the Impugned Order. Apart from the 13 years which the petitioners will never regain, the Petitioners will now have to approach the Madras HC, Andhra Pradesh HC, and the Telangana HC to challenge similar provisions of identical laws before 3 different High Courts creating multicity of proceedings over the same question.”

The petition added that they will have to additionally “challenge the same Andhra Pradesh Act, 1987 before two high courts, the Telangana High Court and the Andhra Pradesh High Court.”

Taking note, the bench Monday recalled the April 2025 order and decided to hear the original petitions afresh.