MADURAI, INDIA, May 13, 2012 (The Hindu): There is nothing wrong in treating musicians who had completed a certificate or degree course in a Government Music College on a par with those who had received informal training from ace performers when it comes to appointment in Temples managed by the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Department, the Madras High Court Bench here has said.
Allowing two writ appeals filed by a female Nagaswaram player as well as the Administrative Officer of the Kallazhagar Temple at Alagarkovil near here, a Division Bench of Justices R. Banumathi and B. Rajendran said that the performance of an informal student trained under a Vidhwan would be more vibrant than a person who had passed out of a college without sufficient training from a leading musician.
The Division Bench set aside an order passed by a single judge on November 13, 2008 cancelling the appointment of R. Chandrakala as the official Nagaswaram player of the temple and held that the other contestant for the post, M. Sankaranarayanan, who had originally filed the writ petition before the single judge, could approach the HR and CE department if he was still aggrieved.
The judges pointed out that the temple had issued a recruitment notification in a newspaper on October 4, 2007 calling for applications from candidates possessing a certificate issued by a Government Music College in playing Nagaswaram. Then, only four candidates including the writ petitioner applied and none of them produced the original certificates during the interview. Hence, the temple abandoned the selection process and issued a fresh notification on December 7, 2007. This time, it did not insist on a certificate from a government college.