MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Monday stayed an order passed by a single judge of the court last week, directing the CBI to register a case against CSI Madurai-Ramnad Diocese, Church of South India Trust Association (CSITA), among others, on charges of illegally selling 31.10 acre government land that was meant to be used for industrial and charitable purposes.
A bench of Justices MS Ramesh and AD Maria Clete passed the interim order on an appeal filed by the diocese challenging the said order on various grounds. The diocese claimed that the single judge ought to have considered the fact that the petitioner had not preferred any complaint before the state police and had directly approached CBI without exhausting other remedies.
Moreover, the single judge had taken the decision on the basis that the petition mentioned property is a government property and it cannot be sold by the diocese. But the property was assigned to the predecessor of CSITA on payment of full market value as early as in 1912, the diocese claimed. Thus the assignee has an absolute right to hold the land and the government has no jurisdiction to cancel the assignment after a period of 110 years as any order of assignment granted prior to 1973 cannot be cancelled beyond three years from the date of assignment, the diocese added.
Hearing this, the judges ordered an interim stay but, as questions were raised on the maintainability of the appeal, added that the interim order is subject to maintainability. The matter was adjourned for further hearing.
The single judge had passed the order on a petition filed by D Devasahayam, president of Christian Minorities Unit. Devasahayam claimed that the 31.10 acre land at Tallakulam in Madurai was assigned by the government to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) (later known as United Church Board for World Ministries) in 1912 for the purpose of establishing an industrial home for needy women but was sold to private individuals by the diocese for commercial purposes in complete violation of the assignment norms.