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.
Source: Barandbench
