Thirupparankundram Karthigai Deepam Row: Madras High Court Holds Officials In Contempt As Thirupparankundram Karthigai Deepam Row Sparks Faith And State Power Clash

Key highlights

• Madras High Court holds officials in contempt over Thirupparankundram Karthigai Deepam row, questions “wilful disobedience” of its order.
• Century‑old practice at Madurai hill clashes with temple ownership rights backed by a 1923 decree and Privy Council ruling.
• DMK government, BJP and Hindu groups turn local ritual dispute into a wider flashpoint on temple control and communal harmony.

Opening overview: a ritual dispute turns into a constitutional stress test

The Thirupparankundram Karthigai Deepam row has turned a seemingly local ritual dispute in Madurai into a high‑stakes test of court authority, state power and temple rights. At the centre is a stone pillar called the Deepathoon, a Sufi dargah on the upper peak, and a long‑standing practice of lighting the festival lamp at a lower level near the Uchipillaiyar shrine.

The controversy escalated after the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court allowed devotees to light the Karthigai Deepam at the Deepathoon, treating the pillar as temple property and directing the administration to make arrangements. When officials instead continued the century‑old practice at the usual spot and did not ensure the Deepathoon was lit, the court held that contempt had been committed and authorised the petitioner and a small group to perform the ritual under Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) protection.

What began as a petition on where to light a lamp has now grown into a wider Thirupparankundram Karthigai Deepam row involving rival interpretations of tradition, a 1923 ownership decree upheld by the Privy Council, and political accusations between the ruling DMK and the BJP. The case also plays out against a sensitive backdrop of co‑existence between the Subramaniaswamy temple and the centuries‑old Sikandhar Badushah dargah, where courts, parties and local communities are all trying to avoid any spark that could disturb the peace.

LATHIS FOR DEVOTION. HC NOT AMUSED. SLAMS STALIN SARKAR. The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court came down strongly on the Tamil Nadu government, accusing officials of deliberately ignoring its order on lighting the Karthigai Deepam lamp at Madurai’s Thirupparankundram temple.… pic.twitter.com/rgWUwUyM3l

— Rahul Shivshankar (@RShivshankar) December 4, 2025

Court orders, contempt findings and the legal spine of the dispute

• High Court order recognised Deepathoon as temple property and mandated lamp‑lighting there.
• Alleged disobedience triggered rare use of contempt powers tied to a historic 1923 decree and Privy Council ruling.

The Thirupparankundram Karthigai Deepam row rests heavily on the Madras High Court’s reading of old civil litigation on who owns the hill. In a recent judgment, Justice G R Swaminathan cited a 1920s suit by the temple management, where a Madurai court declared the temple the owner of the entire hill and circumambulatory path (giri veedhi), excluding specific occupied lands such as the dargah site. The Privy Council later restored this 1923 decree, affirming that the unoccupied portions of the hill had been in temple possession “from time immemorial,” a finding the present High Court order treats as binding.

Relying on this legal spine, the single‑judge bench ruled that the Deepathoon lies on temple land, not within the dargah’s limited parcel, and that lighting the Karthigai Deepam there is a legitimate temple ritual the state cannot block. The court used doctrine like res ipsa loquitur to say the very existence of a lamp pillar indicates its purpose and warned that failure to assert ownership through periodic ritual use could erode the temple’s rights over time.

When the Thirupparankundram Karthigai Deepam row moved into the contempt stage, the judge noted that the authorities made “no arrangements” for the Deepathoon lamp despite clear directions, while the festival lamp was lit at the usual lower‑level spot at 6 pm. The court’s response was unusually proactive for contempt jurisdiction: it authorised the petitioner to climb the hill with ten others, directed CISF to provide security, and held the executive officer in contempt while keeping punitive options open. At the same time, a division bench has adjourned the state’s appeal against the single‑judge order, creating parallel proceedings that keep the legal outcome fluid.

Tradition, shared sacred space and the Karthigai Deepam context

• Century‑old practice keeps the festival lamp away from the dargah peak despite temple ownership claims.
• Karthigai Deepam, a major Tamil festival, ties the Thirupparankundram Karthigai Deepam row to wider questions of faith and custom.

Supporters of the administration argue that the Thirupparankundram Karthigai Deepam row ignores how the ritual has evolved on the ground over more than a hundred years. For generations, the ceremonial Karthigai Deepam at this hill has been lit near the Uchipillaiyar temple at a lower elevation, away from the Sikandhar Badushah dargah complex on the upper peak, with local Hindus and Muslims sharing the hill as a layered sacred space. State sources have insisted that there is no documentary proof that the lamp was historically lit at the Deepathoon on the upper shoulder, and contend that the present legal push relies on a 1990s observation rather than continuous ritual practice.

The broader religious canvas matters because Karthigai Deepam is one of Tamil Nadu’s oldest lamp festivals, with references going back to the Sangam age and strong associations with Murugan and Shiva in the Tamil tradition. Government tourism and cultural documentation describe Karthigai Deepam as a festival celebrated on the full moon of the Tamil month of Karthigai, when rows of oil lamps are lit in homes and temples to symbolically dispel darkness, with major celebrations at shrines like Thiruvannamalai and important Murugan temples. At Thirupparankundram, regarded as one of the six abodes of Murugan, this gives the lamp‑lighting ritual a significance far beyond a routine local function, which in turn amplifies the resonance of the current Thirupparankundram Karthigai Deepam row.

The dargah itself has a layered history that complicates the narrative. Sikandhar Badushah, commemorated at the Thirupparankundram dargah, was the last ruler of the Madurai Sultanate, killed in battle by Vijayanagara forces under Kumara Kampana. His followers built the 14th‑century memorial on the hill, and recent High Court orders have affirmed that while the hill as a whole is temple property, a precisely measured 0.33‑acre parcel housing the dargah remains separate, with limited prayer rights and restrictions on practices like animal sacrifice. Those orders were meant to preserve both heritage and harmony, which explains why all sides publicly stress the need to keep the Thirupparankundram Karthigai Deepam row from disturbing long‑standing communal amity.

State control, temple administration and the political churn

• DMK government frames its stand as crowd‑management and protection of “genuine devotees,” critics see hostility to Hindu rights.
• The Thirupparankundram Karthigai Deepam row sharpens debate on state control over temples and the role of the HR&CE department.

The Tamil Nadu government has defended its handling of the Thirupparankundram Karthigai Deepam row as an exercise in maintaining law and order, especially after prohibitory orders were imposed on the hill citing crowd and security concerns. State sources have said the administration is not opposed to Hindus or their rituals, but is obliged to protect devotees and prevent politicised mobilisations, pointing out that no regular worshipper approached the court and that the lamp was duly lit at the traditional spot. DMK spokespersons have accused the BJP and Sangh‑aligned organisations of trying to manufacture a Hindu‑Muslim fault line in an area where local relations are generally cordial.

Opposition leaders, especially from the BJP, have used the Thirupparankundram Karthigai Deepam row to attack the DMK’s record on Hindu issues and to question the role of the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR&CE) Department in temple affairs. The HR&CE Department, created under a 1959 state law, manages more than 36,000 temples and hundreds of other endowments in Tamil Nadu, making it one of the most extensive systems of state control over Hindu shrines in the country. Critics argue that when this department appears to appeal against a court order favouring a ritual at a Hindu temple, it reinforces longstanding complaints that state management dilutes religious autonomy and sometimes sidelines the wishes of devotees.

The government has countered this by highlighting its legal position that the executive retains exclusive rights over temple rituals and that courts should be cautious about prescribing specific ceremonies or modes of worship. In higher forums, the state has framed its appeal as a defence of administrative discretion and safety on a hill that is also a protected monument, not as an attack on the Karthigai Deepam ritual itself. Yet the optics of a contempt finding, scenes of Hindu groups clashing verbally with police, and BJP leaders calling the situation “shameful” ensure that the Thirupparankundram Karthigai Deepam row will remain politically charged as Tamil Nadu heads toward the 2026 assembly polls.

Law, order and mobilisation on the hill

• Pro‑Hindu organisations mobilised for the Deepathoon ritual, while police used prohibitory orders and CISF deployment to keep control.
• Parallel court proceedings and appeals keep the final legal position uncertain, but the Thirupparankundram Karthigai Deepam row is already a template case.

Crowd dynamics have been central to how the Thirupparankundram Karthigai Deepam row unfolded on the ground. Once the single‑judge order became public, several pro‑Hindu groups mobilised supporters to climb the hill and insist on the Deepathoon lamp, leading to tense stand‑offs when police tried to enforce local bans on large gatherings. Reports from the area describe an organised campaign, with multiple Hindu outfits, including smaller regional groups, using the issue to project themselves as defenders of temple rights and to test the limits of the administration’s crowd‑management strategy.

To prevent escalation, authorities invoked prohibitory powers and coordinated with central forces, while the court itself ordered CISF teams to provide a security corridor for the petitioner’s group when it concluded that its earlier directions had been ignored. For law‑and‑order agencies, the Thirupparankundram Karthigai Deepam row presented a delicate balance: respecting a detailed judicial mandate, preventing flashpoint images from the shared temple‑dargah hilltop and ensuring that Karthigai Deepam passed without communal incident. So far, both official and independent ground reports stress that despite high tempers and political rhetoric, local Hindus and Muslims on the hill continue to prioritise peace and insist they do not want the dispute to be turned into a permanent wedge.

Legally, the next steps in the Thirupparankundram Karthigai Deepam row will depend on how the Madras High Court’s division bench and potentially the Supreme Court balance historic decrees, current security concerns and the constitutional limits on state interference in religious practice. Whatever the final outcome, the case is already being studied by lawyers and policy observers as an example of how contempt jurisdiction can be used to enforce religious‑rights orders, how historic Privy Council rulings still shape present disputes and how heavily state control of temples can weigh on sensitive festival decisions.

Official data tables: temples, heritage and state control

Table 1: Key official statistics on temple administration in Tamil Nadu

Table 2: Heritage and ownership parameters for Thirupparankundram hill

These official figures show how the Thirupparankundram Karthigai Deepam row is embedded within a system where the state directly administers tens of thousands of temples and where heritage protections and century‑old decrees carry legal weight for today’s ritual disputes.

Closing assessment: what the Thirupparankundram Karthigai Deepam row reveals

The Thirupparankundram Karthigai Deepam row has become a revealing case study of how law, politics and faith intersect on a single hill in Madurai. A dispute ostensibly about the location of one lamp now carries implications for the authority of High Court orders, the scope of HR&CE’s control over rituals and the state’s responsibility to safeguard both heritage and harmony on a shared sacred landscape.

As appeals move forward, the judges will have to weigh a historic ownership decree, the practical reality of a century of local practice and credible concerns over crowd safety, all while ensuring that contempt powers are not seen as tools of religious preference. For the political class, the Thirupparankundram Karthigai Deepam row offers an emotive talking point, yet the quieter voices from the hill, both Hindu and Muslim, indicate a strong preference for continuity of peace over spectacle.

In that sense, the eventual resolution of the Thirupparankundram Karthigai Deepam row will likely be judged not only by legal precision or electoral advantage, but by whether it preserves the principle that no authority is above the law while still respecting the lived, plural character of a site that has never needed walls.