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NEW YORK, NEW YORK, August 27, 2004: After three years of lawsuits between two groups of Hindu devotees, a federal judge will decide whether or not the state is entitled to tell a religious organization in Queens how to organize and manage itself. The trustees of the Hindu Temple Society of North America, of Flushing, filed a lawsuit to protest a 2003 resolution and several other actions taken by the State Supreme Court. In the resolution, Judge Joseph Golia appointed a referee to determine who should be a voting member in the temple and ordered the trustees to open all financial and legal documents.



The plaintiffs, represented by The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a not-for-profit group based in Washington, D.C., claim that bringing “democratic practices” into their religious organization violates their First Amendment rights. “It’s not about the control of a property,” said Roman Storzer, a lawyer with The Becket Fund, during yesterday’s hearing in federal court in Brooklyn. “[This is about] a group of people that have no right to control over anything. They’re acting unconstitutionally.”



Judge Raymond Dearie said yesterday that his immediate reaction was that there were some First Amendment implications in the case, yet he will take a few more days to make a determination on whether or not it is a First Amendment case. If the case is not dismissed, the judge could order a preliminary injunction.



Since 2001, the temple, founded in 1970, has been divided into two groups, each with different thoughts on how the organization should be managed. The trustees believe the temple should not have a voting membership, as other Hindu temples in India. A second group, which filed the first lawsuit in 2001, wants devotees to have a voice in the decision-making, select board members and decide who should monitor the temple’s finances. The first bylaws of the temple contemplated a membership with voting rights, they said. The counterpart claims that those rules were never followed by the temple and should not be followed now.



Last January, the appointed referee issued a report ordering some democratic measures such as creating a membership list and making books and records of the temple available. “There’s nothing anti-religious about holding elections,” Krishnan Chittur, the defendants’ attorney, said after the hearing. Uma Mysorekar, president of the board of trustees, said that a referee can’t decide who the members of a Hindu temple are and that such a change would be disastrous for the temple and the Hindu faith. During the hearing, the judge described the case as “a fine mess.” “Is there a way of resolving these differences?” Dearie questioned both lawyers. “You don’t have to respond to that.”



HPI adds: The legal question here revolves around the articles of incorporation and by-laws of the temple. The temple, incorporated as a “free church” under New York law, is not required to have an elected board of trustees. The Becket Fund has involved itself because the case involves a remarkable court intervention in the affairs of a religious organization, one which could set a precedent for legal action involving other religious organizations.

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