Kochi: The Kerala High Court on Thursday asked the head of the Kerala Syro-Malabar Catholic Church Mar George Alencherry and others to face trial in an alleged land scam in an alleged land scam which is believed to have caused a huge loss to the Church.
With this, the Kerala High Court agreed to the earlier ruling by a Sessions court. The High Court rejected all the six petitions submitted by Cardinal Alencherry challenging the ruling by the lower court.
The Thrikakkara Magistrate Court had taken a case against Cardinal Alencherry and others and issued a summons to him. Though it was challenged in the Ernakulam Sessions court, the appeal was rejected.
Both courts observed that it was a prima facie case of impropriety in the land dealings. The cardinal has decided to appeal in the Supreme court.
Meanwhile, the Income Tax department has imposed an additional fine of Rs 3.5 crore on the Ernakulam-Angamaly archdiocese of the Syro-Malabar Church.
The investigation into the land dealings of the church had discovered that the prices shown in the papers were far lower than the market rate.
The case was registered following an order from a single-justice bench of the High Court on a writ petition filed by Shine Varghese, a member of the church.
The bench had ordered to book Cardinal George Alencherry, senior archdiocesan functionaries Father Joshy Puthuva and Father Sebastian Vadakkumpadan, and a parishioner Saju Varghese as there was prima facie evidence of criminal conspiracy, breach of trust and misappropriation of money in the deals.
It had also criticised the police for not registering a case despite being in possession of enough information.
The unprecedented allegations had rocked the Church and it had driven a wedge between the priests and the laity. A section of the people was against the Cardinal and had even demanded that he step down from the post, as the issue had hurt the Church.
The land deal of the Ernakulam Archdiocese of the church dates back to 2016 when it sold a three-acre piece of land in Kochi to repay a Rs 60 crore bank loan. The loan was taken to buy land in Maddur in Ernakulam, to construct a medical college. The agent appointed by the church to facilitate the deal had estimated the value of the land at Rs 27.30 crore, but priests and local people claimed that the property’s real value was at least Rs 80 crore.
In 2017 December it was alleged by the Save Archdiocese Campaign that the church had incurred huge losses by selling land it owned at prices lower than the market value. After the details of the deals came to light some of the members of the Save Archdiocese Campaign formed the Archdiocesan Movement for Transparency (SAMT) to expose irregularities in the land deals. The group includes both priests and laity of the church who stood as a correcting force. The High Court in March 2018 ordered a police probe against Alencherry asking if the Cardinal was the King.
SAMT, a gathering of devotees, which acts as a watchdog for the Syro-Malabar Church, in May 2018 made another allegation against Alencherry that he re-registered a house and 6 cents of land, meant for the underprivileged, in his brother’s family’s name.
The Ernakulam city police in April 2019 had registered a case against Alencherry and three others in connection with the series of land deals that allegedly ended up causing financial loss to the archdiocese. The three others included two priests – Archdiocese procurator Joshy Puthuva and Sebastian Vadakumpadan- and a middleman Saju Varghese, who was the real estate dealer for the land sale.
Followed by this in May, the Ernakulam- Angamaly diocese read out a circular at all churches under its fold criticising its head Cardinal George Alencherry and the Kerala police.
With inputs from other sources