Originally published at National Catholic Register
‘The dismissal of the Catholic appeals without a detailed hearing is disappointing for those involved,’ Romy Chacko, a Catholic lawyer at the Supreme Court, told CNA.
Catholic education officials and legal experts are vowing to appeal the Supreme Court of India’s recent ruling that ended a decades-old policy of zero income tax on the salaries of nuns and priests in government-aided Catholic educational institutions.
“This judgment without a detailed hearing of our plea is very disappointing. We have no option but to challenge this verdict,” Father Xavier Arulraj, the legal secretary of the Tamil Nadu Catholic Bishops’ Council, told CNA on Nov. 15.
The Nov. 7 ruling came after dozens of petitions, including more than 90 pleas by Catholic religious who sought to keep the policy in place in the southern states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
“I have been representing 78 congregations, institutions, and dioceses [from Tamil Nadu] before the Supreme Court,” Arulraj said. “We had hoped for a detailed hearing to explain our position but the court disposed of it without hearing us.”
Since 1944, Father Arulraj noted, the salaries of Catholic nuns and priests had been exempted from income tax as a recognition of their “service
