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The Congress government in Karnataka is considering passage of its temple funds amendment Bill in the state Assembly for a second time after the Bill was defeated in the Legislative Council by the Opposition BJP-JDS combine Friday.
The Bill is also being considered for tabling at a later stage when the Congress has a majority in the Council, party leaders said.
Under the rules, as soon as possible, after a Bill which has once been passed by the House is received from the Council, with a message that it has not agreed to the Bill the House may pass the Bill again and transmit it as passed to the Council.
The Karnataka Hindu Religious Institutions and Charitable Endowments (Amendment) Bill, 2024 was intended to increase the common fund pool for managing the 34,563 temples under the state government’s Muzrai (Religious and Charitable Endowments) Department. It was defeated 15:8, after it was put to vote by Legislative Council Deputy Chairman M K Pranesh, even after the Siddaramaiah government agreed to make changes to it to meet some demands from the Opposition.
Days earlier, the Opposition had also blocked the Karnaṭaka Souharda Cooperative (Amendment) Bill, 2024, aimed at cooperative sector reforms, in the Legislative Council. But the Bill was referred to a House Committee for review, after 30 MLCs voted in favour of its referral to a Select Committee, while 21 opposed it.
The BJP has 34 MLCs in the 75-member Upper House, while the JDS has eight and the Congress 30. One seat is vacant while the two remaining seats involve an Independent and the Chairman.
In the 224-member Assembly, the Congress has a majority with 134 MLAs as against the BJP’s 66 and the JD(S)’s 19.
“If a Bill is rejected by the Council, the possibility of the Assembly passing it a second time to enact it, is being considered,” a state law ministry official said.
State Congress chief and Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar, however, suggested that the Bill could be considered a few months down the line (after the Lok Sabha polls), when the Congress expects its tally to rise in the Council.
“Our Bill would have helped priests in our state, by spending around 10% of collections from high-income temples on the welfare of priests and other staff of all temples, but they [BJP-JD(S)] defeated it. We will get it passed soon, when we have a majority in the Upper House,” he said. The Bill states that high-income temples are institutions whose gross annual income exceeds Rs 10 lakh.
One of the amendments suggested in the Bill was changing the common pool acquisition from “5% of the net income of institutions whose gross annual income exceeds Rs 5 lakh, but does not exceed Rs 10 lakh” to “5% of the net income of institutions, whose gross annual income exceeds Rs 10 lakh, but does not exceed Rs 1 crore”.
The changes were estimated to generate an additional Rs 60 crore for the government from 87 temples with incomes over Rs 1 crore and 311 temples with incomes over Rs 10 lakh.
The BJP called the Bill a Congress attempt to “rob” temples of their funds, and also opposed a proposal to let the government nominate presidents for temple committees, instead of temple committees electing their own presidents.
Although the current Muzrai Minister Ramalinga Reddy offered to make changes in the Bill by reconsidering the proposal to appoint temple committee presidents, Council Deputy Chairman Pranesh of the BJP, rejected the offer.
The Karnataka Hindu Religious Institutions and Charitable Endowments Act came into existence in 1997, with the temples under its purview categorised under three heads. The BJP introduced amendments to it in 2011, to create the common fund pool, by diverting funds from high-income temples to the tune of 10% of the net income of institutions whose gross annual income exceeds Rs 10 lakh and 5% of the net income of institutions whose gross annual income exceeds Rs 5 lakh but does not exceed Rs 10 lakh.
According to 2022 data, 205 temples under the Muzrai Department had earned up to Rs 25 lakh or more per annum (Group A), with 139 earning Rs 10 lakh (Group B), and 34,219 temples earning less than Rs 5 lakh per annum (Group C).
“At present, an annual estimate of only Rs 8 crore is being collected under the common fund pool, which is not sufficient to provide support to the financially weaker Group C temples and the demands of their priests and staff. The Bill intended to provide scholarships to children of priests and temple employees of 34,165 Group C temples,” the Muzrai Minister stated.
He also said that the common fund pool is handled by the Rajya Dharmika Parishat — a trust under the Hindu Religious Act that decides on the use of common pool of temple funds — exclusively for the benefit of Hindu religious institutions, and not for institutions of any other religions as claimed by the BJP.
On Saturday, CM Siddaramaiah accused the BJP of spreading “misinformation” about the Bill intended to improve the lives of families of priests and temple staff. Even the Karnataka Archaka Okkuta, an association of priests, questioned the BJP’s move to oppose the Bill.
The BJP leader in the Council, Kota Srinivas Poojary, himself a former Muzrai Minister, had said that the government should budget funds for the temple staff. “The government already provides grants in the budget, and it can look after the welfare of priests through these. It can also consider taking 10% of the revenue of temples after they meet their expenses,” he said during the debate in the Council Friday.
