Narrowing scope of dispute at Thirupparankundram, Madras High Court upholds lighting of Karthigai Deepam

“Lighting of the Karthigai Deepam is an essential religious practice of the temple,” the Bench said, adding that “the state has no authority to interdict such practice by invoking prohibitory orders, when the land on which the practice is sought to be performed does not belong to the objector”.

In a pointed rejection of the government’s primary defence, the Bench ruled that the administration could not cite law-and-order concerns to avoid compliance with a judicial directive. “Public order is not a talisman to defeat constitutional guarantees,” the judges observed, stating that “executive orders under Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita cannot override a judicial command, particularly when the apprehension is speculative and not founded on past disturbance attributable to the act itself”.

The judges noted that the Collector’s prohibitory order had been issued after the single judge’s directive, and appeared designed to neutralise it.

“The sequence of events gives rise to a reasonable inference that the prohibitory order was passed as a defensive measure to avoid compliance,” the judgment said, calling the appeal against the contempt order “pre-emptive rather than substantive”.

Addressing the argument that the Deepathoon lighting amounted to an impermissible expansion of ritual, the court held that the single judge had not mandated an exclusive or singular relocation of the Deepam. “The impugned order does not prohibit lighting of the Deepam at the Uchippillaiyar mandapam or other customary locations,” the Bench said. “It merely permits lighting of an additional lamp at a place found to be within the temple’s domain.”

Quoting from Saiva and Agamic traditions, the court observed that the act of lighting a lamp symbolised “the dispelling of ignorance and the invocation of divine presence”, and was not confined to one rigid spatial point unless expressly so ordained by scripture.

“In matters of faith, courts are slow to freeze practices into immobility,” the judges wrote, adding that “religion is lived, not fossilised”.

On the competing claims raised by the Tamil Nadu Waqf Board – that the Deepathoon lay within Dargah land and could only be accessed through it – the Bench declined to give a final finding, but clarified that such questions could not be settled in writ proceedings.

“Issues of title, easement and right of passage are matters for a properly instituted civil suit,” the court held, stressing that “the present proceedings are concerned only with the legality of the direction to light the Deepam.”

The judges noted that the Privy Council’s 1931 decree – which recognised temple ownership of the hill while carving out specific portions for the Dargah – continued to govern the field, but said the exact status of the pillar site itself required evidentiary adjudication.

The Bench also took note of submissions by the HR&CE Department that the stone pillar may have Jain origins, pointing to similar structures at Samanar Hills and Shravanabelagola.

“The historical layering of Thirupparankundram – Jain, Saiva and Islamic – is undisputed,” the court said. “However, the mere possibility of Jain association does not, by itself, extinguish the temple’s present administrative control over the land.”

The court cautioned against reading archaeological history as exclusive ownership. “Antiquity is not monopoly,” the judges said.

The strongest language in the judgment was reserved for the state’s refusal to act on the December 1 order, which led Justice Swaminathan to initiate contempt proceedings and direct CISF protection for the ritual. “Non-compliance with judicial orders strikes at the root of constitutional governance,” the Bench said, endorsing the single judge’s warning that “defiance of court orders cannot be normalised under the guise of administrative discretion.”

While stopping short of expanding contempt proceedings, the court made it clear that future defiance would invite “serious consequences”.

The background

The present controversy unfolds on a hill whose legal history stretches back more than a hundred years. Between 1915 and 1931, temple authorities and the hukdars of the Sikandar Badusha Dargah litigated ownership of Thirupparankundram Hill, culminating in a Privy Council ruling in London that vested the hill in the temple while protecting the mosque, its flagstaff and access steps at Nellithope.

For decades thereafter, the hill accommodated multiple faiths without litigation over ritual space. Karthigai Deepam was lit at the Uchippillaiyar mandapam overlooking the town, while the dargah and Jain remnants remained part of the shared landscape.

That equilibrium began to strain in the 1990s, when petitions sought to reframe hilltop practices, often accompanied by political mobilisation. A 2017 Division Bench order had warned against introducing new rituals without proof of custom, citing public order concerns.

The January 6 judgment does not overrule that caution, but narrows its application – holding that permitting an additional lamp on temple land does not, by itself, amount to manufacturing tradition.

The court’s ruling settles the immediate question of whether the Deepam may be lit at the Deepathoon. However, it does not resolve who ultimately owns or controls the pillar, whether access routes cross protected dargah land, or whether civil courts may yet redraw boundaries through evidence.

“Courts must guard against converting faith disputes into title determinations in writ jurisdiction,” the order said on Tuesday.

Thirupparankundram is on the outskirts of Madurai city, where weddings, pilgrimage and small commerce sustain daily life.