Church of South India amenable to writ jurisdiction under Article 226: Madras High Court full bench

A Full Bench of the Madras High Court on Thursday held that the Church of South India (CSI), though a private religious body, is amenable to writ jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India..A Bench of Justices R Subramanian, PT Asha and N Senthilkumar held that since the CSI runs or manages several educational institutes and hospitals, it performs a public duty. Therefore, writ petitions that pertain to these public duties were maintainable, the judgment said.“Therefore, the writ petition against respondents 1 (CSI) and 2 (Church of South India Trust Association), who has been struck off, is maintainable where the action of these respondents which has a direct impact on the educational institutions/hospitals being run by the respondents.".The Full Bench was constituted after divergent views were taken by two division benches of the Madras High Court regarding the maintainability of a writ petition against CSI.While one of the division benches held in 2014 that writ petitions against CSI were not maintainable, another division bench upheld a single judge’s order in 2020, saying that since the Diocese was running several institutions, it was discharging public functions and a dispute relating to these were amenable to the writ jurisdiction..Thereafter, a writ petition was filed by one D Bright Joseph alleging irregularities within the Diocese and seeking directions to hold free and fair elections for appointments to the Diocese.The present full bench was then constituted to decide if a “writ petition invoking the jurisdiction of this Court under Article 226 of the constitution of India lie against the CSI which is only a private body and if so to what extent / circumstances such writs would lie?”.The Bench went on to say that CSI and the CSI Trust Association together operated and managed 2,300 schools, 150 colleges, and 104 hospitals - both aided and unaided - across India. Therefore, the public duty that they discharge fell within the contours of Article 21 and 21A of the Constitution of India. It said that any acts of mismanagement or corruption by the administration in running these schools, colleges, and hospitals, was “likely to bring down the standards of both education as well as medical services can be challenged by any person invoking the rights under Article 226 and in that sense, respondents 1 and 2 would fall within the category of any person or authority as described under Article 226 of the Constitution of India.”.It, however, added that apart from running educational institutions, CSI also maintained churches and discharged functions of the clergy and these functions were “outside the scope of judicial review under Article 226 of the Constitution of India.”“Therefore, the writ petition against respondents 1 and 2 who has been struck off, is maintainable where the action of these respondents which has a direct impact on the educational institutions/hospitals being run by the respondents,” the High Court said..Advocate RS Thankasivan appeared for the petitioner.Senior Advocate V Prakash and Advocate Adrian D'Rozario appeared for the CSI..[Read Order]