
MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court recently imposed Rs 25,000 cost on a litigant for repeatedly filing petitions against a family to extract money from them.
The litigant R Stephen, secretary of Indian Bethel Church in Kanniyakumari district, alleged that one K Ebi Solomon and his father Kamalan are running a church and a prayer hall in a residential building and creating nuisance to the public. He requested the court to direct the authorities to take action against the father and son.
However, Justice GK Ilanthiraiyan, who heard the plea, noted that Kamalan had already filed a petition against Stephen two years ago, alleging that the latter was causing disturbance to their prayer activities. The said petition had been allowed by the court by observing that there is no necessity to get prior permission from any authority for assembling and conducting prayer in a dwelling house and no action was needed in the absence of any public nuisance, he added.
Stephen had also filed another petition seeking to forbear the authorities from granting permission to Solomon and Kamalan to start a church in the said property. But this petition was dismissed in December 2022, the judge noted. Considering the above facts, he observed that Stephen, with an intention to extract money, has been filing petitions one after the other against Solomon and Kamalan.
Further, the latter are not running any church and are only conducting prayer in the house without causing nuisance to the general public, the judge added, and imposed Rs 25,000 cost on Stephen, directing him to pay the amount to Kamalan within two weeks.