ARUL GERALD PRAKASH Vs. STATE OF TAMIL NADU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This Criminal Revision Case arises out of a dispute touching upon not merely property rights, but the deeply sensitive issue of the dignity of the dead and the sanctity of a Christian cemetery maintained by a parish church for over a century. The narrow legal question before this Court is whether the learned Judicial Magistrate II, Nagercoil, was justified in dismissing a petition filed under Sec. 175(3) of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, merely on the ground that it was not accompanied by a supporting affidavit, without affording an opportunity to cure the defect. The broader backdrop, however, involves allegations of unilateral demolition of graves in a church cemetery and the consequent claim that such an act constitutes a serious violation of constitutional, statutory, canonical and international human rights norms.

(2.) The petitioner is a member of Lurthannai Church at Punnai Nagar, Nagercoil. According to him, the Church maintains a separate graveyard exclusively for its members and their families. Christian families, it is stated, do not ordinarily have private family graveyards, instead, members are buried in the common cemetery of the parish church. The cemetery in question is said to be more than 100 years old, where successive generations of the congregation have been buried.

(3.) It is the petitioner's case that for each burial, the family of the deceased pays a sum of about Rs.20,000.00 (Rupees Twenty Thousand only) as a fee or hire for the grave space, and that the graveyard has thus been used and maintained as a sacred burial site for generations of the parishioners.