The Madras High Court’s Division Bench on Thursday dismissed the Tamil Nadu government’s appeal challenging a contempt order related to the lighting of the Karthigai Deepam festival lamp at a disputed stone pillar in Madurai’s Thirupparankundram, leaving the original directive and the enforcement mechanism involving a CISF escort fully intact.

The ruling marks the latest escalation of a dispute where ritual practice, constitutional law, historical ownership claims and contemporary political mobilisation have converged.

The Bench, comprising Justices G Jayachandran and K K Ramakrishnan, described the state’s appeal as both procedurally unsustainable and substantively misplaced. The judges held that the government had approached the appellate court not to contest legal findings, but “as a

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