Land scam: Court stays registering criminal case against bishop

A court in Karnataka, south-ern India, has spared a Catholic Bishop from facing police inquiry into a land dispute.
The Sessions Court in Chik-magalur’s September 1 order observed the accusation against Bishop Thomasappa Anthony Swamy of Chikmagalur and a priest was false. A group of priests and lay people had earlier accused the prelate and Father A Shantharaj of selling a property attached a Church school by fabricating documents.
V T Thomas, the prelate’s lawyer, challenged the case and explained to the court that the plot in dispute was “never sold” and no manipulation of documents had been done.
Presenting proof of documents and minutes of the St Joseph’s Education Society that controls the property, the lawyer pleaded that the case filed by Michael Sadananda Baptist against the Bishop was “fabricated and without evidence.”
Thomas, the lawyer, told that a criminal case has also been filed with city police against Baptist “for cheating, tampering documents, mischief, and criminal conspiracy to tarnish the name of the Bishop and the Diocese.”