NEWS FEATURE: Hindus Wage Legal Battle for Control of Temple

c. 2004 Religion News Service (UNDATED) The next chapter of an entrenched legal battle for control of one of the largest Hindu temples in North America will be written in federal court. The twisting tale of the Hindu Temple Society of North America in Flushing, N.Y., is one of disputed bylaws, an authoritarian board of […]

c. 2004 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) The next chapter of an entrenched legal battle for control of one of the largest Hindu temples in North America will be written in federal court.

The twisting tale of the Hindu Temple Society of North America in Flushing, N.Y., is one of disputed bylaws, an authoritarian board of trustees and a group of members who want trustee elections to be held for the first time.


At stake is the temple’s right to conduct its affairs without government intervention, a right, that if denied, is a violation of the constitutional separation of church and state, the trustees and their supporters say. The members who want elections say that the trustees rule in violation of the temple’s bylaws, and that new elections should be held as soon as possible.

Also at stake is control of an impressive house of worship whose assets are valued at more than $11 million.

Temple lawyers are scheduled to argue in federal court on Aug. 26 that the New York state appellate court is violating the separation of church and state by setting up a procedure to hold elections for temple trustees.

“What’s basically going on is it’s a hostile takeover attempt by dissident members of the temple,” said Roman Storzer, a lawyer with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a nonprofit law firm based in Washington and one of two firms representing the temple’s board of trustees.

“These people are unhappy with the way that the temple was being run, and they are trying to use the state court system as a tool to transfer leadership over,” Storzer said.

But that’s not the case, said Krishnamurthy Aiyer, formerly the temple appraiser and one of the members seeking elections. He said it doesn’t matter to him who wins an election, only that the temple members elect the trustees.

Aiyer said he joined the call for elections in 2000 after his pleas for trustee accountability fell on deaf ears. He and others put together a petition signed by 700 temple members asking for elections, but met resistance from the trustees.


“Nobody was allowed to participate. Nobody was allowed to question,” Aiyer said. “`If you don’t like it, you can go to some other place, somewhere else, don’t come here’ _ that was the general attitude of the trustees from the very beginning.”

The temple society was incorporated in 1970, building a massive gray temple in Flushing designed according to Hindu scripture. It prospered as Hindus immigrated to the United States through the 1970s and ’80s, accumulating millions of dollars in assets.

The crux of the current dispute is over which bylaws govern the temple. There are two sets to choose from: one drafted in 1970, the other in 1978.

Because federal law requires U.S. citizens to sit on the board of nonprofit organizations, seven non-Hindu Americans served as trustees of the temple until Hindus who were U.S. citizens could join the board.

In order to achieve nonprofit status, these first trustees and a tax lawyer drafted a set of bylaws that were sent to the Internal Revenue Service in 1970. The bylaws described how a person could qualify for membership and how trustees would be elected.

They also said anyone could become a temple member irrespective of color, race, religion, sex or nationality. It is unclear whether those bylaws were ever used to govern temple affairs, but there have never been trustee elections.


Storzer said the temple never operated under the 1970 bylaws, which he called “draft bylaws,” but rather under bylaws written in 1978. Those bylaws were written by Hindu trustees and established a self-perpetuating board of trustees with total control over the temple.

Dr. Uma Mysorekar, a gynecologist and current head of the board of trustees, said temple trustees never signed the 1970 bylaws, though Aiyer said they were signed by the temple founder, Dr. Alagappa Alagappan.

During the legal wrangle, the temple members retrieved the 1970 bylaws from the IRS. After several trips to court, the appellate court ruled that the 1970 bylaws govern the temple.

The court instructed Justice Joseph G. Golia of the New York State Supreme Court, who had previously ruled in favor of the temple trustees, to appoint a referee to head a management committee charged with organizing trustee elections. Golia appointed Long Island attorney Anthony Piacentini.

Temple attorneys said the court ruling and referee have violated the temple’s freedom from government interference and amount to the court determining the leadership and membership of the temple.

“This is such an egregious violation of the church autonomy doctrine that our clients’ rights need to be protected and they simply were not getting that in the state system,” Storzer said.


The Becket Fund is not the only religious advocacy group that disagreed with the court’s decision. William Donohue, president of the Catholic League, said he would help the trustees with petitions, protests or a legal filing.

“I was alarmed by the remedy here,” Donohue said. “I don’t like the state intervening in the affairs of religious institutions.”

MO/PH END KING

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