A junior electrical engineer at Madurai’s Meenakshi Sundareswarar Temple has been placed under temporary suspension after a two-minute power outage during Vice President CP Radhakrishnan’s visit on October 30, the temple administration said in an official order.
S Janakiraman was suspended with effect from October 31 under Section 56(1) of the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Act, 1959. The order was signed by R Rukmani, head of the board of trustees for the Arulmigu Meenakshi Sundareswarar Temple.
The Vice President visited the temple along with Tamil Nadu Governor Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar for darshan. After the visit, while Radhakrishnan was addressing journalists on East Chithirai Street, the power supply was interrupted for two minutes, leaving the temple in darkness.
The administration’s notice described the lapse as severe carelessness during a crucial VVIP visit and said the incident had brought disrepute to the state government and the temple administration. The suspension is an interim disciplinary measure, with the engineer required to submit a written explanation within 15 days.
The order states that further administrative action will be taken on the basis of the existing records if Janakiraman does not respond within the stipulated period. It also gives him 30 days to appeal to the appropriate authorities against the suspension.
The incident has also raised questions about the local power arrangements used during high-profile visits to the temple. Tamil Nadu Electricity Minister R Nirmal Kumar said the interruption was not caused by a grid failure, but by a technical glitch at the local substation while the temple’s electricity supply was being shifted in advance to a generator for the visit.
Radhakrishnan referred to the outage while speaking about the state’s power infrastructure, saying the Goddess was intentionally showing the country the extent of power cuts in Tamil Nadu. The remark came amid political criticism of the incident.
The AIADMK said a similar outage had occurred at the temple a day earlier during the visit of former Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami. The report did not provide further details about that earlier interruption or indicate whether it resulted in separate administrative action.
The suspension process will now depend on the engineer’s written explanation, the administration’s assessment of the records and any appeal filed within the prescribed period.
