The Madras High Court has quashed a criminal case filed in 2023 against more than 300 members of the Hindu Munnani organisation over a protest at Thiruparankundram hill near Madurai. The case arose after the Tamil Nadu government decided not to permit the lighting of the Karthigai Deepam, a ceremonial lamp, at a contested spot on the hill during the 2023 festival season. The site has long been a point of friction between religious groups, with a stone structure near a dargah on the upper reaches of the hill claimed by both Hindu and Muslim groups as significant to their respective traditions. When authorities declined to allow the lamp-lighting citing law and order concerns, Hindu Munnani members gathered in protest, leading police to register a case against 304 of them on November 25, 2023. The organisation and its members approached the High Court seeking to have the case thrown out, arguing that their protest was a lawful exercise of the right to peaceful assembly.
Justice R. Vijayakumar, who heard the matter, ruled that a peaceful protest does not amount to a criminal offence in the absence of evidence showing public inconvenience or damage to property. The judge held that dissent expressed through demonstration is a legitimate part of democratic functioning and cannot automatically be treated as a law and order violation. The court found no material on record to show that the gathering had caused disruption serious enough to justify criminal prosecution of those involved. It concluded that continuing proceedings against all 304 accused, more than two years after the incident, would amount to an abuse of the legal process.
The bench accordingly quashed the FIR and the proceedings that had followed from it, closing the case against the protesters entirely. The ruling adds to a series of recent Madras High Court orders on cases arising from religious and political protests in Tamil Nadu, several of which have similarly turned on how far protest activity can be criminalised. Hindu Munnani leaders welcomed the verdict, framing it as vindication of their right to protest against the state’s handling of the Thiruparankundram dispute.