A Bench of Justices CV Karthikeyan and R Sakthivel made the observation while deciding a batch of appeals concerning the administration and elections of the CSI’s Tirunelveli Diocese.
“…neither the Church of South India nor Synod nor any Office Bearers of the Synod nor Tirunelveli Diocese nor any member of the Diocese are registered to act as public servant…They are bound by their faith…It is not of their ilk to act with vengeance, to take resort to express anger, to act with hostility or to cause sufferance for others or even to draw the Church to public by engaging in adversarial litigation, when a pathway of reconciliation is always available.”
The Court said that the CSI constitution itself treated power and authority as a “means of service” and reminded the petitioners that adversarial litigation should not be viewed as a way to satiate a “quest or hunger for vengeance”.
“The faith which the Writ Petitioners have bound themselves to follow in times of joy, in times of hostility, in times of sorrow, or even in times of anger, lead them through only one path, to forgive, to settle disputes amicably and to encourage peace and harmony. It does not lie well, if they were to ignore this alternate way of settling disputes, as provided in the Constitution of Church of South India.”