KOCHI: The Kerala High Court on Tuesday made it clear that the Supreme Court judgment in the Malankara church dispute case cannot be allowed to be violated with impunity. "Nobody is understanding the purpose of the order being passed by the courts. This is the tragedy of the system," observed Justice Devan Ramchandran.
The court emphasised that it did not wish to see churches shut down and wanted everything to work harmoniously. "Even God would not want churches to remain closed," said the court.
The court said it is not concerned about beliefs. "You can have your own belief, but not at the cost of the rule of law. The problem here is that blood is being shed at the cost of faith. Is it worth it? Who benefits from this? Nobody seems to understand what the court wants. I (the judge) made it explicitly clear in the previous order that I would be the last person to send the police into a church. All I'm trying to do is find peace between the factions," said the judge.
A section of people had deliberately chosen to misinterpret the court's intention to find peace with both the factions and was casting aspersions on it, he said. Justice Devan Ramachandran, while deprecating the practice of bombarding letters to the Chief Justice against him, made it clear that he did not take the insinuations against him seriously.
The court was trying to resolve the disputes which had been pending for decades. In fact, the faction, which is against the order of the court, wanted to continue the status quo. It thought that they could run a parallel administration as long as they were able to avoid court orders. In fact, there had to be some meeting point to resolve the issue. They were free to have faith in their religion. But they should equally have faith in the constitutional principles.
The court added that although several attempts were being made to make the bench recuse itself from the case, it would not do so no matter how strong the provocation is. The court also added that matters arising from the Malankara Syrian Orthodox Church row were well settled in the landmark decision of the Supreme Court in the KS Varghese case.