Justice SM Subramanium, a judge of the Madras High Court narrated the harassment he allegedly faced at the Vadapalani Dhandayudhapani temple dedicated to Lord Muruga in Chennai.

The temple is under the control of the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR&CE) department.

The below is Justice Subramanium's version of the events:

Justice Subramanium had visited the temple along with his family on Saturday (17 December). He decided to not request for special darshan by using his VIP status and instead purchase three special darshan tickets, of Rs 50 each.

However, after handing over the money, he found that the person at the counter had given him only two tickets of Rs 50 instead of three. The third ticket was of Rs 5.

When he asked the temple staff to give him a Rs 50 ticket, instead of the wrongly issued Rs 5 ticket, the staff responded rudely and when he asked for the telephone number of the executive officer in charge of the temple in order to lodge a complaint, the staff started a verbal duel and surrounded him in an intimidating manner.

Further, he said that had the police not arrived on time and recognized him, the staff would probably have physically pushed him and his family out of the temple premises.

Aghast at the treatment he faced, Justice Subramanium said that the executive officer should face disciplinary proceedings as she was responsible for not putting in place a mechanism to prevent such illegalities in the matter of darshan tickets.

He gave a written complaint to the special government pleader who was present in the Court, asking him to hand it over to the HR&CE Commissioner. He added that he was refraining from taking suo moto cognizance of the matter in the belief that the Commissioner would take strict action.

The special government pleader assured the judge that action would be taken and the Court would be informed of the action taken by the second week of January.

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