Supreme Court Sets Aside Removal of Tirupathi Mutt Head, Orders Independent Enquiry Under Article 142
A Division Bench found the Dharmika Parishad's removal proceedings fatally tainted by non-supply of documents, pre-determination, and structural bias, ordering a retired judge to conduct a fresh enquiry.
The Supreme Court on 29 May 2026 set aside the removal of Arjun Dass, the incumbent Mathadhipati of Sri Swamy Hathiramji Mutt, Tirupathi, holding that the proceedings before the Dharmika Parishad, Endowments Department, Andhra Pradesh were vitiated by multiple violations of the principles of natural justice. The Court found that the charge memo and 29 relied-upon documents were never properly served on the Appellant, that the enquiry was conducted ex-parte after ignoring his requests for documents and time, and that the Parishad's resolution of 09.05.2023 — directing simultaneous preparation of charges and a suspension order before any charge had been framed — disclosed pre-determination. Declining to remand the matter to the Dharmika Parishad, the Court invoked Article 142 of the Constitution to appoint a retired District Judge as a one-man independent enquiry committee and constituted a six-member Administrative Committee to supervise the Mutt's affairs during the pendency of the fresh enquiry.
How the Dispute Reached the Supreme Court
Arjun Dass has been associated with Sri Swamy Hathiramji Mutt since 1970. He was appointed Pujari in 1975, Adhikari in 1985, and Interim Mahant in 1990. In November 1999, the Akhil Bharatiya Sri Panch Digambar Ani Akhada, Nasik — described as the apex organisation of Hindu Sants, Sadhus and Mahants — confirmed him as the only surviving disciple of his Guru and the permanent Mahant. The Commissioner of Endowments formalised this appointment on 06.07.2000 under Section 53(1) of the Andhra Pradesh Charitable and Hindu Religious Institutions and Endowments Act, 1987 (the 1987 Act). On 08.10.2000, the Akhada Panchayat declared him the 21st Mahant of the Mutt at his Pattabhishekam.
The State's relationship with the Appellant was contentious from the outset. In 2002, Arjun Dass filed a writ petition seeking handover of the Mutt's secular affairs, as government officers remained in charge of Mutt property even after his appointment. While that petition was pending, the Endowments Department set aside his appointment suo motu in 2003. A learned Single Judge of the High Court allowed his challenge in January 2006, directing handover of secular affairs. The State appealed; the Division Bench, by an interim order of 07.09.2006, noted that if Mutt property remained with government officers, it risked being “frittered away.” The Government accordingly issued G.O.Ms.No.1678 on 14.11.2006, directing the Commissioner of Endowments to hand over management of the Mutt's secular affairs to the Appellant. Those writ appeals remained pending as of the date of this judgment.
In December 2017, reports in a newspaper prompted a fresh enquiry notice against the Appellant. He challenged it; the High Court granted interim relief in April 2018. In January 2020, the Commissioner of Endowments suspended him on 24 charges. The High Court allowed him to continue as Mathadhipati by order dated 10.02.2020, a challenge to which was dismissed by the Supreme Court, giving that order finality. The High Court ultimately set aside the 2020 suspension order on 13.04.2023 and remitted the matter to the Dharmika Parishad to proceed in accordance with law.
The Dharmika Parishad had been constituted by G.O.Ms.No.571 dated 13.08.2022 under Section 152 of the 1987 Act, comprising 21 members who are either ex-officio State functionaries or nominees of the State Government. On 09.05.2023, the Parishad unanimously resolved to authorise its legal advisor to prepare charges and suspension proceedings against the Appellant simultaneously. On 08.06.2023, three orders were passed on the same day: framing 16 charges, suspending the Appellant, and appointing a Fit Person. The Endowments Department physically seized the Mutt office and the Appellant's residence on 08.06.2023 itself.
A three-member enquiry committee drawn from the Parishad's own members concluded its enquiry on 19.07.2023 and submitted its report on 01.08.2023, finding all 16 charges proved. The Dharmika Parishad passed a removal order on 24.11.2023 under Section 51(2) of the 1987 Act. The Government confirmed it by G.O.Ms.No.581 dated 08.12.2023. A consequential order dated 19.01.2024 directed identification of a new Mathadhipati. The High Court of Andhra Pradesh, by its judgment dated 09.05.2025 in C.M.A. No. 538 of 2023, dismissed the Appellant's statutory appeal under Section 51(4) of the 1987 Act, upholding the removal. The Appellant then approached the Supreme Court.
The Three Fatal Infirmities Found by the Court
The Court framed two questions: whether the proceedings were vitiated by breach of natural justice, and if so, what relief could be granted.
Non-service of the charge memo and documents. The charge memo ran to 27 pages and was accompanied by 29 supporting documents totalling over 600 pages. The Respondents contended service was effected by affixation on the door of the Appellant's residence under a Panchanama dated 09.06.2023, by email to the Mutt's institutional email address, and through annexures to a counter-affidavit filed in a pending writ petition. The Court rejected each mode. The Mutt premises, including the Appellant's residence, had been physically taken over by the Respondents on 08.06.2023 itself. The Panchanama and photographs filed by the Respondents themselves showed that only six pages were affixed on the door — confined to the Fit Person's appointment order. The charge memo and 29 documents were never affixed. The Court held that to treat affixation on the door of premises already in the State's possession as valid service would be “a legal absurdity.” On the email route, the Mutt's institutional email account had been operated by the Appellant until the Fit Person assumed charge on 13.06.2023; whether the Appellant had access to it after his dispossession was not established. On the counter-affidavit route, those documents were filed in the High Court writ petition after the Enquiry Committee had already concluded its enquiry on 19.07.2023.
Ignoring requests and proceeding ex-parte. Through his Advocate, the Appellant sent three communications — on 17.07.2023 by email, on 24.07.2023 personally delivered against acknowledgement, and on 31.07.2023 by email — each requesting supply of all relied-upon documents and at least one month to submit a defence. The Enquiry Committee dismissed the first communication on the technical ground that it was an unsigned letter received on a committee member's personal mobile via WhatsApp, and proceeded ex-parte on 19.07.2023. The Court found this conduct disclosed “a deliberate disregard for the principles of natural justice.”
Pre-determination. The Parishad's resolution of 09.05.2023 directed simultaneous preparation of charges and a suspension order before any charge had been framed. The Court held this revealed that the entire process was pre-determined and not a genuine quasi-judicial exercise of statutory power.
Why the High Court's Reasoning Did Not Hold
The High Court had reasoned that the Appellant must have possessed the documents because he answered each of the 16 charges in minute detail with specific references to supporting material. The Supreme Court called this a “perverse inference” and an “ill-founded” presumption. The defect went to the fairness of the enquiry process itself, striking at the root of the proceedings. Once such a foundational infirmity is established, the question whether charges might otherwise have been sustained does not arise at the appellate stage.
The Court also addressed the High Court's finding that the opportunity afforded at the show-cause notice stage on 19.10.2023 and the personal hearing before the Dharmika Parishad on 16.11.2023 cured the defects. It rejected this: an opportunity afforded on the basis of a tainted enquiry report, without supply of relied-upon documents and without independent appreciation of evidence, cannot substitute for a valid enquiry under Section 51(2) of the 1987 Act.
On the structural bias point, the Court noted that Rule 26 of the Rules framed under G.O.Ms.No.1206 dated 25.11.2009 (the 2009 Rules) contemplates administrative committees from among Parishad members, not enquiry committees. Reading Rule 26 to permit the same body that unanimously resolved to charge and suspend the Appellant to then sit as the enquiry committee would render natural justice nugatory: the adjudicating authority cannot simultaneously be the investigator and the decision-maker. The Court expressly refrained from pronouncing on the constitutional validity of Section 152 of the 1987 Act, noting that question is pending before the High Court in W.P. No. 16954 of 2023.
Relying on Canara Bank v. V.K. Awasthy and Kashinath Dikshita v. Union of India, the Court reaffirmed that supply of relied-upon documents is the most elementary requirement of procedural fairness, and that no person can be expected to answer a case not fully disclosed to him. It further held that under Section 51(2) of the 1987 Act, the obligation to supply documents is not merely implied but is a mandatory procedural requirement conceived in public interest — engaging the exception carved out in State of U.P. v. Sudhir Kumar Singh — so that prejudice need not be separately demonstrated.
Why Remand to the Dharmika Parishad Was Declined
The ordinary course after setting aside a removal order would be to remand for a de novo enquiry under Section 51(2). The Court identified four independent grounds for declining that course.
First, the officials who by virtue of Section 152 would constitute ex-officio positions in any freshly constituted Dharmika Parishad are the very officials whose prior conduct forms the subject matter of the infirmities found. Remanding to a reconstituted Parishad would recreate the structural conditions of taint.
Second, Section 51(2) of the 1987 Act is entirely silent on the procedure for constituting an enquiry body and the safeguards governing its conduct. Rule 26 of the 2009 Rules, which purports to fill this gap, cannot validly be used for this purpose. A simple remand would therefore be “a futile exercise in procedural circularity,” leaving the newly formed Parishad handicapped by the same procedural vacuum.
Third, the High Court's judgment of 27.01.2006 in W.P. Nos. 4326 of 2002 and 14856 of 2003, affirmed by the Division Bench in W.A. Nos. 258 and 259 of 2006 and given effect by G.O.Ms.No.1678 dated 14.11.2006, represents a concluded and binding determination that secular management of the Mutt vests in the Appellant. The removal proceedings effectively sought to undo, by administrative action, the effect of a judicial determination that the State itself had executed through a Government Order.
Fourth, the prior Dharmika Parishad demitted office in June 2024 and nearly two years had elapsed without reconstitution. The Appellant is in his seventy-first year; the Mutt has been administered by a Fit Person for nearly two years; and the extensive endowed properties cannot be left to further uncertainty.
The Article 142 Mechanism
Invoking Article 142 of the Constitution, the Court appointed Mr. Boddepalli Rama Rao, retired District Judge, as a one-man independent enquiry committee to conduct a fresh enquiry into the charges against the Appellant. The Court drew on Delhi Judicial Service Association v. State of Gujarat, Union Carbide Corporation v. Union of India, Supreme Court Bar Association v. Union of India, Vineet Narain v. Union of India, and BCCI v. Cricket Association of Bihar to explain that Article 142 operates to fill legal and procedural gaps and give effect to the statutory scheme, not to supplant it, and may be invoked where the existing institutional framework is structurally unfit to remedy an infirmity.
The Court also drew on the constitutional character of the Mathadhipati's office, citing The Commissioner, Hindu Religious Endowments, Madras v. Sri Lakshmindra Thirtha Swamiar of Sri Shirur Mutt (AIR 1954 SC 282) and Sri Sri Sri Lakshmana Yatendrulu v. State of A.P. for the proposition that in the concept of Mahantship, the elements of office and property, of duties and personal interest, are blended and neither can be detached from the other. Any arrangement permanently bifurcating the religious functions of a Mathadhipati from his administrative functions, or vesting the latter in a Fit Person indefinitely, would amount to a denial of the very concept of Mahantship. Article 26 of the Constitution, as interpreted in Ratilal Panachand Gandhi v. State of Bombay, requires that any deprivation of the office of the spiritual head be effected only through procedures that are demonstrably fair, neutral, and minimally invasive.
The Court also constituted a six-member Administrative Committee under Section 55(2)(b) of the 1987 Act to aid the Appellant in his capacity as Mathadhipati during the pendency of the fresh enquiry. The Committee is chaired by Justice (Retd.) Duppala Venkata Ramana, retired Judge of the High Court of Andhra Pradesh/Madhya Pradesh, and includes Swami Madhav Prapanna Charya (affiliated to Ramanuj Kot, Ujjain), Mr. Manish Kapooria IPS (retd.), Mr. Y.V. Raviprasad Senior Advocate, Mr. Manish Taskar Chartered Accountant (Hyderabad), and a person to be nominated by the Endowments Department within one week.
Order
The Court allowed the Civil Appeal and set aside the High Court's judgment dated 09.05.2025 in C.M.A. No. 538 of 2023. Consequently, the removal order dated 24.11.2023, the confirmation G.O.Ms.No.581 dated 08.12.2023, the consequential order dated 19.01.2024 of the Dharmika Parishad, and the enquiry report of the three-member Enquiry Committee dated 01.08.2023 all stand set aside.
The one-man Enquiry Committee is directed to conduct the enquiry observing the following key steps: the State Government and Endowments Department/Dharmika Parishad shall within two weeks hand over the charge memo dated 08.06.2023 and copies of all relevant documents to the Enquiry Committee; the Committee shall immediately supply those documents to the Appellant; the Appellant shall be afforded a minimum of four weeks to submit his statement of defence, extendable on reasonable cause; the Committee shall conduct a formal hearing affording the Appellant full opportunity to examine documents, cross-examine witnesses, and adduce evidence; the Committee shall submit its report within one year from the date of supply of documents to the Endowments Department; and the Committee's expenses shall be borne from the Mutt's funds, with the enquiry officer entitled to travel expenses equivalent to first-class railway fare or airfare and Rs. 20,000 per sitting. An appropriate venue within the Court Complex, Tirupati, shall be provided by the Principal District Judge, Chittoor.
The Appellant is restored to the status of Mathadhipati and may participate in the religious and spiritual activities of the Mutt. He shall not alienate, mortgage, or otherwise convey any Mutt property without prior permission of the Administrative Committee, and shall cooperate fully with the Enquiry Committee. If the fresh enquiry results in an adverse finding and a removal order is passed, the Appellant shall be at liberty to prefer an appeal before the appropriate forum within one month. The Court expressly stated that the directions are case-specific, are not intended to supplant the statutory authority of the Dharmika Parishad, and shall not be treated as precedent for other cases.