Supreme Court Reserves Judgment In Cardinal Alencherry's Plea To Quash Land Scam Cases; Questions General Directions Issued By HC

The Supreme Court , on Wednesday, reserved its judgement in a Special Leave Petition filed by George Alencherry, the Major Archbishop of Syro-Malabar Church against the judgment delivered by the Kerala High Court in August 2021 which refused to quash the criminal cases over the irregularities in the sale of properties belonging to Ernakulam-Angamalay Archdiocese. Apart from the Cardinal, the Eparchy of Bathery and the Catholic Diocese of Thamarassery had also filed SLPs challenging the observations made by the High Court that Bishops have no power to alienate church assets.While reserving the judgment, the bench comprising Justices Dinesh Maheshwari and Bela Trivedi questioned the approach taken by the single bench of the High Court in continuing to issue further directions in the matter, after the dismissal of the Section 482 CrPC petition filed by the Cardinal. It may be recalled that last year, the High Court had issued follow-up directions to the State to identify public properties encroached by religious trusts. The High Court had also recommended that the Central Government should bring a uniform law to regulate religious trusts.Justice Maheshwari pointed out to the complainant's lawyer Senior Advocate Jayant Muthuraj :“Mr. Muthuraj, the last paragraph of the (HC) order says very clearly that these petitions filed by Mr. Luthra(Cardinal's lawyer) stand dismissed. Sir, we are dealing with 482. He wanted quashment, the High Court dismisses his petition. There is a full stop after that, the matter ends with that full stop. It cannot proceed further. That is the 482 jurisdiction that we understand. The High Court said to file a compliance report”, the Bench said.Adding on, the Bench said that in the 482 pleas before the High Court, the question is whether the proceedings can be quashed or not.“What is this compliance report, we don’t understand. If you are not satisfied with the compliance, the complying body would be given directions. For giving those directions, now the Court calls upon the Central government also. We enter into different areas…..The Simple question is – under 482 whether these proceedings should be quashed or not – the answer is yes or no. The matter has to end there”.The Bench further pointed out that the High Court, under its 482 jurisdiction, went ahead to question the earlier settlement agreement. “482 powers also would have certain boundaries.”During the hearing, Senior Advocates CU Singh, appearing for the Eparchy of Bathery, Sidharth Luthra, appearing for the Cardinal, Jayant Muthuraj appearing for the complainant, Joshy Varghese and Jaideep Gupta appearing for the State government made submissions. Senior Advocate V Giri and Advocate PV Dinesh also made arguments on behalf of third-party intervenors(organisations seeking church reforms). However, the bench said that it will not entertain the arguments of intervenors No Specific Bar In Filing The Second Complaint: MuthurajResponding to the earlier arguments made by Cardinal's lawyer that the complainant had indulged in "forum-shopping", Muthuraj submitted that the first complaint was a general complaint with 5 properties and the second one against 2 properties in the Maradu jurisdiction. There was no bar in filing the second complaint, he said. “I filed a general complaint in the first instance, I admit. There are huge number of properties which are undervalued, money has not been credited. That’s a conspiracy. There no specific mentioning of any transaction or any material. Nothing was given. Cognizance was not taken. No adverse order was passed. Complaint was filed on 3.1.2018, while that compliant was pending, other 6 complaints were filed. The mistake I committed is, I should have disclosed that I’ve filed a general complaint in another jurisdiction.” When Varghese went to Kakkanad jurisdiction, he specifically mentioned each complaint with the particular sale deed within that jurisdiction – details on purchaser, accused, land involved, sale deeds, the amount involved, the amount received and not received, undervaluation. “I did not include anything on the Maradu complaint in this one”, Jayant said. Further, he argued that Magistrate, sessions judge and the High Court – all looked into the matter, found a prima facie case and upheld the order of summons issued by the Magistrate. Therefore, there was no need for the Supreme Court to interfere now. “On the face of it, ingredients of the offence are made out. It took cognizance and issued process. The order was challenged before the Sessions Court which passed a detailed order saying “the offences alleged have been made out”. It was challenged before the High court and the High Court confirmed it.” In the sale deed, it was mentioned that three crores were transferred to the bank account, however, on the date of the registration of the sale deed, only three lakhs were actually transferred into the bank account. The...

Supreme Court Reserves Judgment In Cardinal Alencherry's Plea To Quash Land Scam Cases; Questions General Directions Issued By HC

Rintu Mariam Biju

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