A petition has been filed in the Supreme Court in the long-running Thiruparankundram hill dispute, challenging the Madras High Court verdict that subjected the lighting of the Karthigai Deepam at the hilltop to prior consultation with, and clearance from, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and local police authorities.
Filed by Advocate G. Balaji on behalf of Rama Ravikumar, the original writ petitioner in Rama Ravikumar v. The Executive Officer, Arulmigu Subramania Swamy Temple, the plea challenged the Division Bench ruling as an impermissible curtailment of vested temple rights flowing from binding civil court decrees, and as a judicial overreach into matters constituting essential religious practice and internal religious management.
While the High Court affirmed, in principle, the temple’s entitlement to perform the Karthigai Deepam ritual at the Deepathoon, the petitioner contends that the subsequent imposition of administrative pre-conditions has effectively converted a judicially recognised right into a permission-based concession, dependent on executive discretion. According to the appeal, such conditionalisation undermines the finality of adjudicated civil rights and dilutes the constitutional protection afforded to denominational institutions.
The controversy stems from an earlier order dated December 1, 2025, wherein a Single Judge of the Madras High Court held that the Deepathoon fell within temple land and lay outside the demarcated limits of the Sikkandar Badusha Dargah. On that basis, the court directed that the Karthigai Deepam be lit at the traditional site. However, the Division Bench, while upholding the ritual itself, introduced regulatory riders in its January 6, 2026 judgment.
These directions required the temple administration to consult the ASI and the police prior to the ceremony, empowered the ASI to prescribe conditions on the premise that the hill constituted a protected monument, and permitted regulation of the number of devotees participating in the ritual. It is these conditions—particularly the insistence on ASI involvement in the conduct of the ritual—that form the fulcrum of the challenge before the apex court.
The appeal asserts that the High Court transgressed its jurisdiction by superimposing fresh substantive restrictions notwithstanding final civil decrees that have attained conclusiveness. The petitioner relies on a lineage of judgments beginning with a 1920 decree of the Madurai subordinate court, which declared that ownership of the entire Thiruparankundram hill vested in the Arulmigu Subramania Swamy Temple, save for clearly demarcated exclusions such as the Dargah summit and the Nellithope burial ground.
Although this decree was overturned by the Madras High Court in 1926, the Privy Council, in 1931, restored the trial court’s findings, unequivocally recognising the temple’s proprietary title over the hill. The plea emphasises that this declaration has been repeatedly affirmed in later proceedings before the High Court, including disputes concerning quarrying activity, access rights, and the performance of religious observances on the hill.
Further reliance has been placed on a 1996 order of the Madras High Court, which held that the Devasthanam alone was entitled to light the Karthigai Deepam at the hilltop, subject only to maintaining a prescribed distance from the Dargah. According to the petitioner, the present directions go far beyond such limited spatial regulation and amount to substantive interference with a core religious function.
Invoking Article 26 of the Constitution, the appeal contends that decisions relating to the situs of the Deepam and the authority competent to perform the ritual fall squarely within the domain of religious denomination autonomy. In the absence of an express statutory mandate under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1958, or any other enabling legislation, regulatory authorities cannot be vested with veto powers over essential religious practices, it is argued.
The petition further alleges hostile discrimination, asserting that while adherents of another faith enjoy unhindered access and usage rights up to the Nellithope area, Hindu worship at the hilltop has been subjected to layered administrative controls lacking legislative sanction. Such differential treatment, the plea submits, offends Articles 14 and 25 of the Constitution.
The appeal has been filed against the backdrop of parallel proceedings pending before the Supreme Court concerning the broader regulatory framework governing Thiruparankundram hill, including petitions seeking an expanded supervisory role for the ASI. The outcome of the present challenge is likely to have significant implications for the balance between heritage conservation, civil court finality, and constitutionally protected religious freedoms.
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