The Madras High Court recently called upon the Church of South India (CSI) to settle its disputes amicably and encourage peace rather than resort to litigation out of anger or vengeance. [Church of South India v. Selva Kumar]
A Bench of Justices CV Karthikeyan and R Sakthivel made the observation while deciding a batch of appeals concerning the administration and elections of the CSI's Tirunelveli Diocese.
"...neither the Church of South India nor Synod nor any Office Bearers of the Synod nor Tirunelveli Diocese nor any member of the Diocese are registered to act as public servant...They are bound by their faith...It is not of their ilk to act with vengeance, to take resort to express anger, to act with hostility or to cause sufferance for others or even to draw the Church to public by engaging in adversarial litigation, when a pathway of reconciliation is always available."
The Court said that the CSI constitution itself treated power and authority as a “means of service” and reminded the petitioners that adversarial litigation should not be viewed as a way to satiate a “quest or hunger for vengeance”.
"The faith which the Writ Petitioners have bound themselves to follow in times of joy, in times of hostility, in times of sorrow, or even in times of anger, lead them through only one path, to forgive, to settle disputes amicably and to encourage peace and harmony. It does not lie well, if they were to ignore this alternate way of settling disputes, as provided in the Constitution of Church of South India."
The observations came in a dispute over elections to the Tirunelveli Diocesan Council. The term of the Council had expired in April 2024 without fresh elections being held. The CSI Synod subsequently issued a communication in May 2025 appointing an administrative committee to temporarily manage the Diocese and conduct elections.
3 members of the congregation challenged the arrangement before the High Court. A single judge had entertained their writ petitions and appointed a retired High Court judge as administrator to conduct the elections. The Division Bench disagreed and set aside the single judge's order.
It held that the Synod's communication appointing the committee was an internal communication which did not involve the discharge of any public duty or public function. The Court held that the single judge had, therefore. erred in exercising jurisdiction under Article 226 over the communication.
The Bench further stressed that courts should ordinarily refrain from interfering in internal religious affairs. It said,
“The Court should exercise restraint. Interference in a matters of religious affairs should be avoided.”
Significantly, the Division Bench also asked for reconsideration of the larger question of whether writ petitions can be entertained against internal CSI communications when no public duty or public element is involved.
It directed the Registry to place the judgment before the Chief Justice with a request to constitute a larger bench to re-examine a 2024 Full Bench ruling in D Bright Joseph v. Church of South India.
The Court ultimately allowed the writ appeals, dismissed the underlying writ petitions and also dismissed the connected contempt petition and miscellaneous applications.
Senior Advocate V Prabhakar, assisted by Advocates NJ Ramachandar and K Kaviarasan, appeared for the writ petitioners.
Senior Advocate V Prakash, instructed by Ajmal Associates, appeared for the CSI.
Advocate PP Alwin Balan appeared for the Tirunelveli Diocese in the principal appeal.
[Read Judgment]