Overview
- Advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay filed a Public Interest Litigation in the Supreme Court on Sunday seeking a judicial or expert commission to review pay and benefits in state-controlled temples.
- The plea asks the court to declare priests, sevadars and other temple staff as employees under the Code on Wages, 2019, which would trigger minimum-wage coverage and related protections.
- The petition says many workers survive on irregular dakshina or small honorariums of about Rs 1,000 to Rs 5,000 a month without pension, healthcare or wage security.
- It cites recent protests in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana over unpaid minimum wages and a 2025 Tamil Nadu order, later withdrawn, that barred priests from accepting offerings in aarti plates.
- Upadhyay argues that state control of temples through Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments and endowments departments creates an employer–employee relationship, echoing past High Court remarks on meager pay.