Thu Mar 13 05:56:19 UTC 2025: ## Madras High Court Reverses Ruling on Plantain Leaf Ritual
**Chennai, March 13, 2025** – The Madras High Court overturned a single judge’s May 2024 decision that permitted a devotee to perform a ritual involving rolling over used plantain leaves after a religious feast (annadhanam). A division bench comprising Justices R. Suresh Kumar and G. Arul Murugan ruled that the practice cannot continue until a related Supreme Court case is resolved.
The original ruling, by Justice G.R. Swaminathan, granted the devotee, P. Naveen Kumar, permission based on the constitutional right to religious freedom. However, the division bench noted that a 2015 ruling by another division bench had prohibited the practice. They deemed that the single judge should not have contradicted this prior ruling.
The case stems from Naveen Kumar’s petition to perform the ritual, *angapradakshanam*, on the Jeeva Samathi day of a saint. The Karur Collector appealed the single judge’s decision, arguing that the 2015 ruling, which prohibited the ritual on public roads, had not been challenged in the Supreme Court and therefore held legal precedence. The Collector’s appeal was upheld by the division bench. The court’s decision temporarily halts the ritual pending the outcome of the pending Supreme Court case.
First Piper 