MADURAI: The Madurai bench of the Madras High Court on Tuesday ordered an interim stay till April 8, against the contempt proceedings pending before a single judge of the court over non-compliance of an order passed directing lighting of Karthigai Deepam on Thiruparankundram hill dated December 1, 2025.
The division bench of justices N Sathish Kumar and M Jothiraman passed the interim order while hearing a batch of letters patent appeals filed by the state authorities. The bench adjourned the cases to April 8, by directing the high court registry to number and list another batch of petitions for hearing on the same date.
Earlier, the single judge (Justice G R Swaminathan) had also posted the contempt petitions related to the Deepam row for hearing on March 18.
In the previous hearing, the single judge had granted two weeks time to the trustees of the Thiruparankundram Subramaniya Swamy temple to respond to its suggestion to permit five persons to be named by the court to offer prayers at the ‘deepathoon’ situated atop the hill for 15 minutes.