Panaji, Dec 25 (IANS): Chief Justice of India S A. Bobde, who is in Goa on a brief visit to the coastal region, visited the nearly 500-year-old Chamundeshwari Devasthan temple, in Bicholim sub district in North Goa on Tuesday evening.

According to Tushar Tople, who heads the Devasthan's Trust, the Chief Justice of India offered his prayers to the Goddess Chamundeshwari and even performed a sashtang namaskar, a formal obeisance to the deity by lying prostrate on the floor.

"He is very humble. We, as temple trustees, offered him a chair to sit in the temple hall, but he preferred to sit on the floor in front of the deity. He also performed a sashtang namaskar with ease," Tople told IANS on Tuesday.

Located in Pilgao village, the Chamundeshwari temple's deity is regarded as an avatar of Shakti and thronged by thousands of worshippers during the festival of navaratri.

Tople also said, that when Bobde was serving as a Judge with the Bombay High Court, during which he also served on the Court's bench in Panaji, he was a regular visitor to the Chamundeshwari temple.

Bobde was appointed as a judge of the Bombay High Court in 2000, before he was elevated as Chief Justice of the Madhya Pradesh High Court in 2012.

During his brief visit to Goa, Bobde also visted the Devki Krishna temple at Marcela in Ponda sub district in South Goa.