MADURAI: The Madurai bench of the Madras High Court will be pronouncing orders on the batch of appeals filed against the verdict in the Thiruparankundram Karthigai Deepam lighting case at 10.30 am on Tuesday.
The division bench of justices G Jayachandran and K K Ramakrishnan said this while rejecting a request made by an advocate, representing the Sikandar Badusha Dargah, on Monday for an urgent hearing against a single judge’s order, dated January 2, which restricted the number of participants for the santhanakoodu festival on Thiruparankundram hill scheduled on Tuesday to 50.
Justice S Srimathy imposed the restriction in an interim order passed on a petition filed by M Manickamoorthy seeking direction not to allow kandoori during the festival.
On Monday, the division bench said the issue has been in the appeal verdict and told the counsel to move the court after it is pronounced, if needed.
Meanwhile, the dargah filed an application before the Registry requesting to list Manickamoorthy’s petition before Justice Srimathy on Tuesday to seek clarification whether the restriction on number of participants is for the entire festival or only for climbing the hill.
On December 1, 2025, Justice G R Swaminathan ordered lighting of Karthigai Deepam on a stone pillar near the dargah atop the hill, in addition to the usual places. However, the order was not implemented by the district administration citing law and order problems. Appeals were filed by the district collector, city police commissioner, HR&CE officials, the devasthanam, dargah members and the TN Waqf Board against the order. After extensively hearing all stakeholders, the bench reserved its order on December 18.