Supreme Court halts exhumations in Indian state but upholds village bans on Christians

The Indian Supreme Court temporarily halted the exhumation of bodies of tribal Christians in Chhattisgarh state following an appeal.

In a separate ruling, the court dismissed a plea challenging a Chhattisgarh High Court verdict that said a ban on Christian pastors entering some villages was “not unconstitutional”.

On 18 February, Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta ordered a stay on any further exhumations from village cemeteries and removal of the bodies to burial grounds elsewhere, after the non-profit organisation Chhattisgarh Association for Justice and Equality submitted a petition. The court asked the state government to files a reply in four weeks.

The petitioner’s counsel Colin Gonsalves had contended that local authorities were misusing the split verdict in the case of Ramesh Baghel versus State of Chhattisgarh, to stop burials of tribal Christians at places within village precincts.

In that ruling on 27 January 2025, regarding the burial of Pastor Subhash Baghel who died on 7 January, Justice B.V. Nagarathna was in favour of burial with due dignity in the pastor’s private land, Justice S.C. Sharma observed that no citizen had an unqualified right to choose the place of burial. The two-judge bench allowed burial at a different location in a village around 30km away.

Michael Williams, president of the United Christian Forum (UCF), an ecumenical persecution watchdog, said that “the directive against exhumation emerges against a backdrop of troubling incidents involving Christian burials across Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Jharkhand and beyond”.

He said the UCF recorded 23 incidents nationwide in 2025 in which Christian burials were opposed, with the majority reported in Chhattisgarh.

“These incidents reveal a systematic pattern of intimidation, violence and discrimination against tribal Christians, whose burial rights are increasingly challenged and politicised,” he continued.

Recently, a young tribal boy was denied a Christian burial in Kapena village, in Odisha’s Nabarangpur district, after Hindu villagers demanded that his family renounce their faith.

Despite a strong police presence, protesters disrupted his burial in the family’s private land. The interment was allowed only after the family agreed to forego Christian rites of burial and not place a cross on the tombstone.

In another judgement on 16 February, the Supreme Court dismissed a plea challenging the Chhattisgarh High Court ruling that hoardings barring entry to pastors and “converted Christians” in eight villages in the state’s Kanker district were “not unconstitutional”.

The Chhattisgarh High Court had dismissed two petitions seeking the removal of the hoardings, holding that they were installed “to prevent forced conversions through allurement or fraudulent means and cannot be termed as unconstitutional”.

Gonsalves, also counsel in this case, argued that the High Court had made adverse observations about missionary activities in tribal areas without any evidence on record.

However, the Supreme Court declined to intervene and advised the petitioner to seek relief from village councils or other appropriate statutory authorities under the Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas Rules that govern self-administration in tribal areas.

This article was originally published on https://www.thetablet.co.uk/news/supreme-court-halts-exhumations-in-indian-state-but-upholds-village-bans-on-christians/