By Maktoob
The Madras High Court has passed an interim order restraining the construction of a church close to a century-old Mariyamman temple in Coimbatore, holding that local authorities “must not casually brush” aside the objections of the Hindu majority in the locality to the proposed structure, Live Law reported.
A Bench of Justices G R Swaminathan and V Lakshminarayanan passed the order on May 29 in a writ petition filed by Balasubramaniyam N, a resident of Kalapatti in Coimbatore, who had challenged police protection granted by the District Collector and the Revenue Divisional Officer (RDO) to the President of the CSI Christ King Church for the proposed construction.
“When Hindus constitute an overwhelming majority and they vigorously oppose the construction of a church in the immediate vicinity of the temple, then, the authority must not casually brush the objection aside,” the Court said.
Describing Coimbatore as “a communally sensitive city” that had witnessed bomb blasts and religious riots in the past, the Bench said that since the proposed church would come up “within a stone’s throw” of the Mariyamman temple, in an area with “only a handful of Christian families,” it could not rule out “mala fide intentions” behind the project.
According to the petitioner’s submissions, which the Court recorded in its order, the locality had grown from around 350 families decades ago, of which only three were Christian, to roughly 1,000 families today, of whom about 950 are Hindu, 15 Muslim, and a small number Christian.
The Bench based its order partly on revenue records, which it said showed the proposed site to be a public road rather than land with clear private title.
“Title cannot vest in a private body when the revenue record indicates that it is a public road,” the Court observed, adding that a civil suit over an earlier, 2010 permission for construction in the area remains pending before the District Munsif Court, Coimbatore.
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