Supreme Court Grants Anticipatory Bail To Parents In FIR Registered In Tamil Nadu For Refusing To Send Children To Missionary School

The Madras High Court through the impugned orders had dismissed their petitions seeking anticipatory bail in FIR registered under Sections 153, 153(A), 504, 505(1)(c), 505(2) of IPC.

Accordingly, a bench of Justice Bela M. Trivedi and Justice Pankaj Mithal while granting anticipatory bail observed, “Having regard to the facts and circumstances of the case, in order to see that there is no further animosity created amongst the village people, we deem it appropriate to accept the present appeals”.

Senior Advocate Madhavi Divan appeared for the petitioners and Senior Advocate V. Krishna Murthy appeared for the respondents.

In the present matter, the appellants had resisted from sending their children to the Missionary School, which was situated in the Village itself, as the school management had collected donations from the village people by stating that the school was going to be upgraded as middle school and they wanted to construct new school buildings.

However, instead of upgrading the school as middle school, the School Management demolished the whole school building and were trying to construct a Church on the said land. The parents of the children contended that the intention of the school management was to convert people to Christianity.

Although, the Senior Advocate appearing for the petitioners apprised the court that an alternate arrangement has been made by the State Government, by arranging the buses for sending the children to the neighboring village schools and some talks of settlement are also going on with the School Management people.

Before the High Court, it was the second bail application, where the Court in the first application had observed, “’Forgive them, they know not what they are doing’. I have no other apt quote to explain the illegal activity that has been undertaken by the petitioners in the name of religion. 6.What they are doing is infesting the younger mind with hatred, ill-feel and disharmony on the basis of the religion. Not only that, they have divided the younger mind on the basis of the religion. This is a long and short of the subject matter”.

The High Court had noted that the grievance of the villagers was genuine, when the school administration by name TDTA shifted the elementary school from the present premises to some other place, on ground that the new premises is located at a distant place, causing the children to travel a long distance. However, also noted that the District Administration by agreeing to provide proper transport facilities had resolved the issue.

The bench also noted that their grievance to establish a Government School could have been genuine, “But demanding the above said school to be established by the Government only on the religious line is totally unwarranted and uncalled for…”, it observed.

The next grievance is that they are putting up a new church in the old premises, which belongs to the Government over which, a writ petition before this Court is also stated to be pending.

The High Court considering that a lis is pending before the Court, the bench in the impugned order had further observed, “But without addressing the grievance in a lawful manner, as mentioned above, they want to divide the children on the religious line”.

"So such persons are not entitled for any discretionary relief. The attempt on the part of the petitioners to run a parallel school has to be appropriately handled through the legal action. The people like these petitioners deserves no sympathy from this Court. So, I find no reason to entertain this petition", the High Court observed.

Cause Title: Kadarkarai & Ors. v. State Rep. By The Inspector Of Police