NEW DELHI: Does only Tiruchy or do other parts of Tamil Nadu also practise burying Christians and Dalit Christians separately?
When the National Commission for Minorities (NCM) asked Bishop Antony Devottas’s representative about this, his reply that it is not an isolated incident and is indeed prevalent in other parts of Tamil Nadu, surprised the NCM.
At its hearing on December 20, the NCM said that it would also hear RCMC, Tiruchy and deferred the matter.
However, in a surprising development, the NCM advised Supreme Court advocate Radhakanta Tripathy, who moved it to highlight the detestable practice of separate burial for Christians and Dalit Christians, to take up the matter in a higher court and inform it of the development.
A peeved Tripathy, in a rejoinder told NCM that the said matter cannot be taken up to the higher court in an appeal by him as the higher court would question his locus standi and there is also an unreasonable delay as the munsif court had decided the case of Tiruchy cemetery way back in the 1980s.
The NCM has also felt that the Tamil Nadu government must be asked to intervene in the matter to help the church to have more equable social practices.
On this point, Tripathy told the NCM that it itself should conduct a thorough investigation and only then a public interest litigation petition would be entertained either by the High Court or by the Supreme Court.