The dispute started when the property was transferred from the Muzrai Department to the Waqf List.
Baba Budanagiri in Chikmagalur
Last December, a video clip of saffron-clad participants at the annual Datta Jayanti celebrations in Karnataka’s Chikmagalur town circulated on social media, with prominent BJP leaders from the region saying that “Dutta Peeth will come under the custody of Hindus” and that the temple ” Hindus belong, was and will be. An hour’s drive north of the city a ridge leads to the Shri Guru Dattatreya Baba Budan Swami Dargah, a cave temple where both Hindus and Muslims come to worship. With the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, the Bajrang Dal and the BJP organizing rallies for the temple in the 1990s and early 2000s, it has become another Ayodhya in the south.
The root of the dispute goes back to the 1960s when the Karnataka government transferred the property from its Muzrai department (which manages Hindu religious institutions) to the list of waqfs. After the Dargah was taken over by the Waqf Board in 1975, a suit was filed before the District Judge and this court ruled in 1980 that it was not the property of the Waqf. Rejecting the Waqf Board’s appeal, the Supreme Court in 1991 commended both the hereditary patron – Sajjad Nasheen – and the Hindu plaintiffs, who did not claim the temple to belong to one community or the other.
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Over the years, a series of court cases followed, amid allegations of mismanagement of the dargah; Demands by Hindu groups through a trust called Sri Guru Dattatreya Peeth Devasthan Samvardhana Samiti to complete the rituals of worship for a Hindu priest who was supervised by Sajjad Nasheen; and petitions by civil society groups concerned by the turn of events.