Court Allows Demolition of Church
Coimbatore: The Madras High Court has vacated the stay on the demolition of a 164-year-old church in Coimbatore, saying the structure has no heritage value.
The ruling came on a petition filed by a former seminarian Thomas G Rathinaraj as the authorities of the St. Michael’s Church at Big Bazaar Street were planning to demolish the present structure.
They want to construct a new and spacious church that can accommodate over 2,500 believers at a time.
The court dismissed the petition praying to stop the demolition observing that the work to raze down the structure has already begun and there was a considerable delay in filing the case against it.
"The commissioner of Archaeology, Government of Tamil Nadu, has said that though the church is more than 100-years-old, it has no sculptures, inscriptions or any unique artistic interest, and the church had undergone repairs, alterations, additions, and extensions number of times with modern materials,” the court said.
As for the present condition of the church, the bench said, "as per photographs, it is evident that more than 75 per cent of the demolition work is already over and only the remains of doom are existing and in the nearby places schools are located, where children are playing and unless the said debris and existing doom are removed immediately, it may endanger the life of the children and general public."
Welcoming the court verdict, parish priest P Maria Joseph said the decision to build a new church was taken after finding that the present structure was too weak to withstand the vagaries of nature.
Rathinaraj, who is presently working in Rome, said he would file an appeal against the order.
source: ucan