Madras High Court directs State government to constitute Tamil Nadu Heritage Commission within four weeks

The Madras Excessive Courtroom, on Thursday (October 9, 2025), directed Tamil Nadu authorities to represent a heritage fee for shielding the age-old buildings and premises not coated underneath the Historic Monuments and Archaeological Websites and Stays Act of 1958 and the Tamil Nadu Historic Monuments and Archaeological Websites and Stays Act of 1966.

A particular Division Bench of Justices R. Suresh Kumar and S. Sounthar, constituted for listening to temple-related instances, ordered that the Tamil Nadu Heritage Fee (TNHC) must be constituted inside 4 weeks and a compliance report have to be filed earlier than the courtroom. The interim order was handed on a writ petition filed by temple activist T.R. Ramesh.

The Bench stated, although the State legislature had enacted the TNHC Act in 2012 itself, the regulation remained dormant for 12 lengthy years and was introduced into power solely with impact from March 12, 2024 after the previous Chief Justice Sanjay V. Gangapurwala and Justice J. Sathya Narayana Prasad (since lifeless) nudged the federal government to take action in a case filed by Indian Nationwide Belief for Artwork and Cultural Heritage (INTACH).

Not constituted but

Even after the regulation got here into power, the federal government had to date not constituted the fee which must be chaired by an eminent individual with concern and dedication for heritage conservation and include no more than 16 members together with the Tourism secretary, City Growth Secretary, Municipal Administration Secretary, Rural Growth Secretary and Legislation Secretary who shall be ex-officio members.

Therefore, the Bench ordered that the “State authorities should come ahead to represent such a fee on the earliest.” It directed “the Secretary to Authorities, Tourism, Tradition and Non secular Endowments division to take all essential endeavour to represent the Tamil Nadu Heritage Fee ideally inside a interval of 4 weeks from the date of receipt of a replica of this order.”

Tiruvannamalai temple works

Arguing as a party-in-person, Mr. Ramesh had highlighted the absence of TNHC to the courtroom through the listening to of his case complaining about a number of development works being carried out by the Hindu Non secular and Charitable Endowments (HR&CE) division each inside and out of doors the Arunachaleswarar Temple at Tiruvannamalai. The judges had inspected all these works on October 5.

Pursuant to their inspection, the judges directed the HR&CE departmernt to briefly halt the development works being undertaken for establishing a queue advanced, an Annadhanam koodam (a shed for serving meals), a prasadam stall and the proposed facelifting of Tirukalyanamandapam at Kalyanasundareswarar Sannidhi till the courtroom might look at them additional and cross essential orders.

The division was additionally directed to halt the continuing development of a memorial for a temple elephant. After discovering that the memorial was being constructed on a foremost street outdoors the temple premises, the judges puzzled if it was actually essential to place up such an enormous development. They directed the HR&CE officers to submit information to show that essential approvals had been obtained for the memorial.

The Bench led by Justice Kumar, nevertheless, permitted the HR&CE division to go forward with the continuing works for offering facade lighting to the Rajagopuram (prime temple tower) and giving a facelift to the Kalaiarangam (auditorium).