Supreme Court of India. | Photo credit: SUSHIL KUMAR VERMA
A petition was filed in the Supreme Court to direct the Center and state governments to set up a judicial commission or committee of experts to review the wages and other benefits provided to priests, sevadars and temple employees in state-controlled temples.
The PIL filed by advocate Ashwini Upadhyay said the writ petition seeks directions to the Center and the states to constitute a judicial commission or committee of experts to review the remuneration and other benefits provided to priests and temple employees in state-controlled temples.
“The Petitioner also seeks a declaration that the priests and temple staff are ’employees’ under Section 2(k) of the Wages Act, 2019. The Petitioner contends that once the State assumes administrative, economic and financial control over the temples, an employer-employee relationship is created and the denial of decent wages to the priests and temple staff under Article 1 violates the right it guarantees to temple employees.
Mr. Upadhyay said the cause of the action arose on April 4 when he went to Varanasi to attend a public program and after performing ‘Rudrabhishek’ at the state-controlled Kashi Vishwanath Temple, he found that the priests and temple staff were not even given minimum wages to live with dignity.
Systemic exploitation
“Recently in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, priests and temple staff staged a large-scale protest demanding minimum wages. Priests and temple staff are not even paid the minimum wage prescribed by the state for unskilled and semi-skilled workers. This is systemic exploitation. The state acts as a model employer through the subsidy department, but violates the Minimum Wages Directive and the principles of the Act4.
The cause of action further states that the continued rejection of the 2026 inflation-adjusted minimum wages has prompted the petitioner to seek judicial intervention to prevent further marginalization of priests and temple staff.
Upadhyay further said that the precarious nature of livelihood was starkly exposed on February 7, 2025, when the Tamil Nadu department issued a circular at “Dhandayuthapani Swami Temple” in Madurai, strictly prohibiting priests from taking “Dakshina” in “aarti slabs”.
“It must be stated that the priests in such temples often receive no formal salary from the state and rely solely on ‘Dakshina’; the state administrative order directly threatened them with starvation. Although the incident was withdrawn due to public outrage, it underscores the state’s arbitrary power over the priests’ survival. It is also a bitter truth that states control thousands of temples or churches, but not a single church.
The petition alternatively sought to direct the Center and the states to take appropriate steps for the welfare of the priests, sevadars and other staff of the temple in the spirit of the earlier judgments of the Allahabad High Court.
Published – 10 May 2026 22:31 IST
