Shut down fake websites of temples, ensure devotees don't fall prey and make donations: Madras High Court to State

The Madras High Court on Tuesday directed the Tamil Nadu government to shut down all fake websites created by third parties in the name of ancient temples in the State [P Markandan v The Commissioner]..A bench of Justices R Mahadevan and J Sathya Narayana Prasad of the Madurai Bench said that State government's Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR&CE) Department must crackdown on all such illegal websites and streamline the process of offering devotees the option of performing rituals online..In its order, the Bench called upon the State government and the HR&CE department to prevent "innocent devotees" from falling prey and making donations to such scamsters. It also said that the State should take the assistance of its cyber crime wing and recover the amounts collected through fake or illegal websites. "Unfortunately, where there is go(o)d, there is also evil. Some people take advantage of the religious faith of the devotees', fraudulently monetize it by creating illegal websites in the name of the deities/temple(s). Through such websites, they collect huge amount for special darshans, rituals and other services from the devotees, but pay only a paltry sum to the administration of the temples, thereby deriving unlawful gain. This type of scam, regrettably, is a common occurrence in today’s time. The authorities who are bound to take stern action against those perpetrators, so as to prevent innocent devotees from falling prey to such dirty tricks, have failed to act accordingly. Such is the issue involved in the present writ petitions," the order stated.The Court was hearing two petitions - one filed by P Markandan, and the other by one AR Subramanian - to shut down illegal websites and to take criminal action against those who creating such fake websites and siphoning off donations from unsuspecting devotees..The Court noted that by impersonation, various websites have been created in the name of the temples without the permission of the HR&CE department or the mutts to attract devotees for performance of different poojas in the temples at the rates fixed by archakars, in collusion with the touts.It further said that passing prohibitory orders or injunctions in such cases do not seem to work since perpetrators continue to operate through mirror websites or different URLs. In light of this, the Court felt the need to pass a dynamic injunction, which is usually passed in matters involving intellectual property rights."Applying the same to the present case, this Court is of the view that a dynamic preventive order is necessitated because of the sheer involvement of the number of temples, touts and illegal websites that either provide links to webpages or URLs created by third parties, impersonating as that of the official temple sites," the Court said. .It, therefore, directed the State government to "shut down" or "close" all such websites within three months and submit a compliance report. It also issued the following directions to the State government to ensure that such cases of impersonation are prevented in future:i) State government must shut down all unauthorised and fake websites opened by the third parties, in the name of the temples or, deities across the State within three months;ii) State should take its Cyber Crime Wing's help to recover money collected through fake websites;iii) The State government should prepare a list of authorised websites of temples in TN and provide a list of official website of temples with domain names to Department of Telecommunication and Ministry Electronics and Information Technology to ensure that any fake websites created in future are immediately blocked;iv) Streamline the system for letting devotees perform poojas, temple rituals online..Advocates R Venkatesh and M Karthikeyan appeared for the petitioners.Additional Advocate General Veerakathiravan and Additional Government Pleader P Subburaj appeared for the State government. Advocates VR Shunmuganathan, M Muthugeethaiyan, M Sarvanan, K Govindraj, and L Victoria Gowri appeared for the other respondents. .[Read Order]