December 1st 2023.
Members of Protestant churches in Mumbai have launched an online petition to urge the State and Central Governments to frame laws that will protect their community properties from illegal trustees. The petition, which has been hosted on change.org, has already collected over 1500 signatures.
Church members have reported that many properties, such as churches, schools, colleges, hospitals, and grounds, which were set up by missionaries over two hundred years ago, are being sold, leased, or alienated to non-Christian groups without the knowledge of the community. What's more, corruption has spread to the highest ranks of the church trusts, with many high-ranking officials and clergy having been arrested across the country on charges of their complicity in illegal property transactions.
The most recent example of such a transaction is the plan to sell the development rights of land belonging to St Peter's Church and School, Mazgaon. This property belongs to the CNI, and church members have alleged that the trust which agreed to the deal is not recognised by the Charity Commissioner, who has administrative jurisdiction over trusts.
Deepak Jadhav, secretary of Emmanuel Church, Grant Road, said that governments need to take action in order to protect places of worship. He gave the example of Robert Money School in Grant Road, which was leased to a trust to run an international school, resulting in the Church community having no access to the place.
The petitioners have asked for the implementation of The Places of Worship Act 1991, which was enacted to maintain the status quo of religious places as they existed on Independence Day. They have also requested that properties of religious trusts which have been illegally transferred for other uses should be given back to their congregations, and that elections to church trusts boards should be conducted more democratically and transparently.
The petition has received support from church members across Mumbai, and is continuing to spread. According to lawyer and activist Cyril Dara, who started the petition, “It has 1515 signatures and a good number of comments. All of them are genuine.”
The Christian community of Mumbai is hoping that the State and Central Governments will take their concerns into consideration and protect their properties from being misused by illegal trustees.
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