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CHENNAI: Holding that mala fide intent could not be ruled out in a proposal to build a church in the vicinity of a Hindu temple, Madras HC has stayed its construction in Coimbatore.”Coimbatore is a communally sensitive city. It witnessed bomb blasts and bloody religious riots. The proposed church would come up within a stone’s throw from the existing Mariyamman Temple. There are only a handful of Christian families. If a large church is proposed to be constructed in the vicinity of the Mariyamman Temple, mala fide intentions cannot be ruled out,” a division bench of Justices G R Swaminathan and V Lakshminarayanan said.The court said it would also take on record the submission of the petitioner that since a new govt led by C Joseph Vijay was formed, “posters have appeared in some parts of Tamil Nadu calling for construction of churches in every village”.The interim order was passed on a plea by N Balasubramaniyam opposing the construction of a church at Kalapatty in Coimbatore. “The petitioner hints at the possibility of the new building being a centre of conversion activity. We are a secular nation. We are a pluralist society. Religious amity has to be preserved. If a religious right is established, then it is the duty of the state to aid in its enforcement,” the judges said. The court said the situation would have been different if the construction was proposed on a patta land whose title was beyond dispute, there was no religious structure belonging to any other community in the immediate vicinity or if there was no opposition. In the case at hand, however, revenue records indicated the site was a public road, the location was too close to an old temple, and there was vigorous resistance, the HC added.The court also placed on record the submission of the petitioner that TN assembly speaker JCD Prabhakar quoted Bible verses in his inaugural address to the legislative assembly.
