Chennai: The Madras High Court today turned a petition which sought a direction to the State government to withdraw the ‘Annai Tamil Archanai’ scheme, which lets devotees to opt for the chanting of hymns by priests in Tamil, instead of Sanskrit, while performing pujas inside the sanctum sanctorum of temples.
A bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice P D Audikesavalu refused to entertain the public interest litigation since the issue was not res integra (an unsettled question of law) any more.
They said another Division Bench of Justices Elipe Dharma Rao and K Chandru (both retired now) had, in March 2008, dismissed a batch of cases filed in 1998 and held that the Agama Sastra do not prohibit chanting of mantras in Tamil.