New Delhi, July 20: A Tirupati devotee today moved the Supreme Court seeking a directive to the RBI and the Centre to accept Rs 8.3 crore worth of demonetised currency lying in the hundis (cash boxes) of the temple, said to be the world's second richest.

The government's refusal to accept the notes offered by devotees was not only discriminatory but also meant that the "wishes" made by the pilgrims to Lord Venkateshwara (Lord Balaji) would not be fulfilled, says the plea by V.V. Ramanamurthy, a journalist.

"The pilgrims' and devotees' offerings to Lord Venkateswara was not accepted/redeemed by the Reserve Bank of India due to which about Rs 8.29 crore consisting of old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes were packed and kept in boxes with the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD)," says the plea, filed through advocate Shravan Kumar.

"Non-acceptance of pilgrims' money on a par with NRIs, district cooperative banks is discriminative. It also means pilgrims' wishes will not be fulfilled (and) such offerings will not be utilised for the services run by the board (TTD). On the other hand, keeping such a huge amount of money in demonetised currency by the board is also an illegal act and a punishable offence under the law," the petition says.

The main temple of Lord Venkateshwara at Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh is considered the world's second richest shrine with an annual income of Rs 650 crore and assets of Rs 50,000 crore. It is deemed next only to Kerala's Shri Padmanabhaswamy temple, whose assets are estimated at over Rs 1 lakh crore.

According to the petition, not accepting public money meant for charity and service also infringes on devotees' right to practise and propagate religion, and violates the fundamental rights of equality#, right to practise one's religion# and the right to life and liberty# guaranteed by the Constitution.

According to the petition, it is an age-old practice among devotees - especially in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Kerala and Maharastra - to put away money in piggybanks whose collections are later offered in the temple's hundis. Such devotees, the plea says, do not even count how much money has been collected, nor examine the currency notes, before depositing the cash in the temple hundis.

Besides the main Tirupati shrine, the TTD runs temples in other cities and towns like Delhi, Rishikesh, Guwahati, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad and Kanyakumari.

According to the petition, except in the TTD temples at Chennai and Hyderabad where hundi collections are counted and deposited once in two days or every week, the process is conducted once in six months in other places.