A court in central India has sentenced a Catholic priest and a nun to two months each in jail for defying a court order to reinstate two students their school expelled two years ago.
The district court in Ujjain town of Madhya Pradesh state also asked Father Sebastian Mullamangalam, the then manager of St. Paul Convent School, and school principal Sister Archana to pay 1 million rupees (US$16,000) compensation to the students.
The court’s Jan. 6 order, made public three days later, also requires them to pay legal compensation to the state of US$3,200. The court, however, has kept its order in abeyance for a month to help the convicts appeal against the order in a higher court, failing which they will have to accept the sentence. Church officials have removed the accused priest and nun from the school and appointed new officials but maintained they committed no offence. The school is accused of illegally terminating three students at the end of academic year 2015, with a remark in their transfer certificate that their parents’ “behaviour was not good.”
