Setting aside a Karnataka High Court order, the Supreme Court has held that the offerings — gold, silver and money — at the temple in Jamkhandi taluk of Bagalkot district would be divided between the two contending parties as decided by the trial court.

“The learned trial court judge as also the court of the first appeal, in our opinion, cannot be said to have committed any mistake in taking the same into consideration for determining the rights of the parties.

High Court erred
The High Court, in our opinion, was thus not correct in reversing the judgment and decree passed by the learned trial court judge as also the court of appeal,” said the verdict pronounced by Justices S B Sinha and H S Bedi. The High Court had said that the non-perishable offerings to the deities would be taken by one of the two families, leaving the other family to wait for its turn after 12 years.

Hundi collection
The apex court, however, did not pass any comment on the collection in the hundis, which after the enactment of the Endowment Act, should have been spent on the development of the temple.

“We, however, make it clear that we have not gone into the question as to whether any offerings made in hundis for development shall go to any of the parties or not.

“Such a question having not been gone into by the courts below, we refrain ourselves from doing so,” the court said.

The court said the family members of Parayya Hittalamani and Sri Parayya Gurulingayya Poojari would be sharing the offerings equally between themselves as decided by the trial court.
According to the petition, it was decided by the fathers of the present litigants to take turn in carrying out the once-in-12-years ritual festival.

Equal right
Both the families are entitled to receive half of non-perishable offerings such as gold, silver and money made to the deity and the representatives of both the families would perform puja. They have equal right in worshipping the deity and there is no distinction between the two families, the court said.

However, the families would share the offerings of naivedya, fruits, corns, oil, milk, curd, sugar, jaggery etc to the presiding deity in equal amounts and also take turn to perform the rituals, said the court by ending the litigation which entered court in 1956.