The Court refused to accept the State’s submission that removal of such stone was in the nature of a civil dispute and must be decided by a civil court.
Instead, Justice Venkatesh said that said that there was no point in taking the dispute to a civil court because no court can decide if a stone is merely a stone or an idol.
“A very funny situation will arise before the civil Court wherein the seventh respondent will claim that the stone must be treated as an idol and the petitioner will state that it is merely a stone and not an idol. It will become impossible for the Court to decide whether it is a stone or it has uplifted itself into the status of an idol. Fortunately, in our country, no court exercises ecclesiastical jurisdiction. It is quite unfortunate that such superstitious beliefs continue to prevail in the society and people do not seem to evolve by passage of time. No useful purpose will be served by initiating proceedings before the civil Court and in fact, it will be a waste of judicial time to ponder over such a frivolous issue,” Justice Venkatesh said.
Source: Barandbench
