Judge withdraws remark on Christian institutions

Justice Vaidyanathan while dismissing a plea moved by a MCC faculty member challenging the show cause notice issued by the college regards Sexual harassmentcomplaints against him by students, had held “Before parting with the judgement, this Court feels it appropriate to point out that Christian missionaries are always on the source of attack one way or the other and in the present era, there are several accusations against them for indulging in compulsory conversion of people from other religions into Christianity.”

“Now, there is a general feeling amongst the parents of students, especially female students that co-educational study in Christian institutions is highly unsafe for the future of their children and though they impart good education, the preaching of morality will be a million-dollar question,” he said while noting “as long as a religion is practised in streets in lieu of its worshipplaces, like Temple, Mosque, Church, etc., such devastation, as in the present case, does occur and will be mushrooming.”

However, MCC’s counsel John Zachariah on Tuesday made a mention that the observation made in Paragraph 32 may not be relevant to the present context as it is highly detrimental to the interest of the entire Christian institutions, which are rendering yeoman services to the society and therefore those observations may be removed.

He further submitted that there may be one or two strayincidents prevalent in the religion and the same cannot be taken in its entirety as a base to from such an observation.

Following this, the judge on ensuring that this court can remove para 32 at the this stage in the absence of any review petition before this court since there is no request for reviewing the entire order and what is sought to be removed is a particular observation, which is general in nature and is inapplicable to the present case on hand, directed the registry to issue a fresh order after removing the Para 32.

It may be noted that the observation had drawn severe flak from various bodies like the Tamil Nadu Bishops’ Council (TNBC), the All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA) and the Indian Christian Association of Tamil Nadu.

It was felt that the judge had come up with such a sweeping observation with no institutional material and that such baseless accusations could have a serious impact on the welfare of minorities in the current socio-political climate.