Scindias claim a stake in Sanquelim’s Vitthal temple

Panaji: The Scindia royal family, in a decades-old property dispute, has claimed a stake in the well-known Shree Vitthal Rakhumai Satyabhama temple at Vitthalapur, Sanquelim, of which former chief minister Pratapsingh Rane is president. However, temple secretary Bhausaheb Rane Sardesai said that the Scindia family “cannot claim a stake in the temple as it is governed under the Mazanias Act and belongs to the mahajans”.

The Mazanias Act refers to the ‘Regulamento das Mazanias’ (Devasthan Regulation), which was enacted by the Portuguese legislature in 1933. The law continued to be in force even after Liberation, given the provisions of the Goa, Daman, and Diu Administration Act, 1962. The Act was amended by the Union territory/state legislature several times, and remains the law concerning the administration of temples in Goa.

TOI reported on Saturday that the Madhya Pradesh HC at Gwalior granted 90 days for an amicable settlement between Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia and his three aunts — Usha Raje Rana, former Rajasthan CM Vasundhara Raje, and former MP minister Yashodhara Raje. The report states that at stake in the dispute is one of India’s largest royal estates, including the Shree Vitthal temple.

However, the temple’s former president and former attorney, Deepaji Rane Sardesai, said that the temple was not constructed by the Scindias, and was already existing. The Scindia family renovated it, but cannot claim stake in it, he said. “The Scindia family renovated the temple and handed it over to the committee. The temple management is looked after by the committee under the Mazanias Act,” he added, stating that the Scindia family formed a trust to pay some amount to the priest at the temple, but they eventually stopped that.

Vijayadevi Rane, in a book she published last year on her husband Pratapsingh, explained the connection between the Rane and Scindia families. She said that Gajra Raje (Pratapsingh’s aunt) never forgot Sanquelim. “As maharani of Gwalior, she sent architects and resources back to her home and rebuilt the family’s small Shree Vitthal-Rakhumai temple, an over 500-year-old temple, into a much larger structure,” she wrote.

“From Gwalior, she dispatched the Scindia royal gold-embroidered insignia and a palanquin for the temple deity. On festival days, the deities of the Shree Vitthal temple are taken out in procession in Gajra Raje’s richly-carved palanquin, which bears her royal seal. Gajra Raje maintained the temple in grand style, as if to give thanks to Shree Vitthal for her own good fortune,” she wrote in the book.

Apart from the Sanquelim temple, other locations that figure in the dispute include the iconic Jai Vilas palace in Gwalior, Madhav Vilas palace, Happy Vilas, George castle (Shivpuri), Kaliadeh palace (Ujjain), Gwalior house and Scindia villa (Delhi), Padma Vilas palace (Pune), and Scindia ghat (Varanasi).