Justice Swaminathan, a lamp-lighting order and a fiery row

In recent weeks, justice GR Swaminathan’s name has been everywhere, surfacing more often in parliamentary rhetoric than in law reports. His December 1 order permitting the lighting of a lamp atop the Thiruparankundram hill in Madurai triggered a volatile chain of events.

The Tamil Nadu government defied the order, inviting contempt proceedings. Opposition MPs announced an impeachment motion. A division bench of the Madras High Court later upheld justice Swaminathan’s ruling and declared that the hilltop, the ancient stone pillar (Deepathoon or lamp pillar), the temple, and the surrounding lands belonged to the temple, and that any contrary claim would amount to trespass.

The argument was that a lamp had been lit atop the hill, on a pillar, till it was moved, decades ago, ostensibly to not offend the sensibilities of worshippers at an adjoining dargah. The controversy had historical and archaeological facets -- but they judgement changed all that.

Justice Swaminathan himself became the story. An ideological outlier, or a judge bound by text?

This was not justice Swaminathan’s first brush with public outrage, nor the first time he was cast as an ideological outlier or a judicial provocateur. But a closer look at his career reveals something less controversial. Judges who have worked with him describe justice Swaminathan, 57, as acutely aware of his ideological position, yet one who insists on “anchoring his decisions within constitutional limits,” even when that complicates how he is read and reported.

A decade before the Madurai hilltop became a flashpoint, Justice Swaminathan, then a lawyer, found himself in the middle of another controversy.

In January 2015, the Tamil writer Perumal Murugan was summoned to “peace talks” by the district administration in Tiruchengode, his hometown. Hindu organisations were protesting Murugan’s 2010 novel Madhorubagan. The administration’s solution was mediation.

Justice Swaminathan, then the Assistant Solicitor General at the Madras High Court’s Madurai Bench, attended the meeting as Murugan’s lawyer and, by most accounts, friend. According to participants, he argued that Murugan should not apologise, that a writer’s freedom could not be bartered for administrative convenience. Nut the he pressure prevailed. Murugan issued an unconditional apology and announced on Facebook that the “writer in him is dead.” Justice Swaminathan disclosed that the police had suggested Murugan “exile himself” from his hometown in the interests of law and order.

A year later, the Madras High Court quashed all criminal proceedings against Murugan and his publisher in a landmark judgment on artistic freedom. Murugan returned to writing and public life and dedicated a subsequent novella “Poonachi” to justice Swaminathan and his wife, Kamakshi. “That you can go beyond ideological differences and bind people together with love is an important lesson that I learnt from him,” Murugan wrote.

Around the same time, justice Swaminathan’s professional life took a decisive turn. In 2017, then chief justice of the Madras high court , Sanjay Kishan Kaul (who would himself soon be elevated to the Supreme Court) proposed his name for elevation to the high court. Justice Swaminathan, a first-generation lawyer in Thiruvarur, was appointed an additional judge that June and made a permanent one in April 2019.

Justice Kaul recalls that it was the Perumal Murugan case that brought Swaminathan to his attention. “It was Swaminathan who stood by him. I watched him take that case up and stand by someone who was being hounded by people from all directions. And I thought to myself, a man of such strong conviction and integrity deserves to be encouraged, to be brought to the bench,” he said.

Of the sixty names Justice Kaul proposed during his tenure, forty-six were elevated. “And I can say that Swaminathan is one of the very best judges the Madras high court has,” he added.

Friends and colleagues say it is justice Swaminathan’s ideology and background that complicates this portrait. HT reached out to justice Swaminathan for a comment but didn’t receive a response.

He joined the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh in 1994 and worked as a full-time pracharak for two and a half years. He does not disown this past, nor obscure his religiosity. In Tamil Nadu, where caste, faith, and politics form a volatile mix, this openness has proven combustible.

During the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, when members of the Tablighi Jamaat became a national fixation, justice Swaminathan was part of the bench that permitted foreign members of the group, stranded and criminally charged across Tamil Nadu, to return to their home countries. The court held that the prosecutions were unsustainable, driven more by suspicion than evidence.

More recently, he quashed the preventive detention of YouTuber Savukku Shankar, reminding the State that personal dislike or political inconvenience could not substitute constitutional thresholds under detention laws. Dissent, the court held, however abrasive, was not itself grounds for incarceration.

In another case, involving a Tamil Nadu woman whose husband died in Cameroon and whose employer denied compensation, Swaminathan directed the Union government on December 15, 2025, to frame a policy to assist Indians facing hardship abroad. The judgment drew on ancient notions of “rajadharma” alongside constitutional obligation, asserting the State’s duty to its citizens beyond territorial borders.

Critics, however, point to his upper-caste Hindu identity and RSS affiliation as explanatory keys to his judgments.

“Justice GR Swaminathan may grant relief in individual cases, but his public conduct reflects an RSS-driven agenda that violates his oath to uphold the Constitution and undermines Dr Ambedkar’s vision of equality and minority rights. There are numerous instances reflecting his biases,” former Madras HC judge, Justice K Chandru said.

“At an RSS meeting last year, he says Constitution was copied from the 1935 law and that there is no originality in our Constitution. Dr Ambedkar himself said he would not waste time responding to such people. Yet, a sitting high court judge speaks like this,” he added.

But on the Deepathoon issue, those familiar with the proceedings reject the suggestion that Swaminathan acted impulsively or allowed personal belief to shape the outcome. They point out that the judgment rested on documentary material, particularly the Privy Council agreement governing the disputed land, which recorded that the stone pillar formed part of temple property. The lighting of the lamp atop the hill, the record showed, had been a long-standing practice, with no serious dispute.

The contempt proceedings were not initiated suo motu but arose after the state refused to comply with the court’s directions. The state appealed, citing law and order concerns, but a division bench dismissed the appeal. “If the reasoning was flawed or ideologically driven, the division bench could have said so. Why does the criticism remain directed solely at the single judge?” a senior lawyer said.

Colleagues describe justice Swaminathan as disciplined. His disposal rate is among the highest on the Madras High Court. Two years ago, he published something rare in the Indian judiciary: a personal performance report card detailing his output over seven years. He also asked the Bar to correct the record when distortion crept in.

Justice Indira Banerjee, who administered his oath of office, recalls a judge focussed on work. “He is deeply religious personally, but never did I receive any complaints of him being partisan,” she said. His home life, she added, was structured around care: his wife had dedicated herself to their specially-abled son. “His sole focus was work,” she said.

Others point to quieter details. When he took up judgeship, he gave his office to two associates -- one Christian, one Muslim.

During his years as a lawyer, he never quoted a fee, accepting what clients could afford. He has said publicly that caring for his son altered him, that watching a child untouched by caste, religion, or politics forced a recalibration of what mattered.

Allegations, denials, and politics: The impeachment motion, moved by Tamil Nadu’s ruling party DMK and the Congress, rests, in part, on allegations of caste bias in courtroom listings and access. A letter circulated among MPs cited perceptions that certain advocates, particularly Brahmin and right-wing affiliated lawyers, received preferential treatment.

A batch of senior advocates who appear before the judge regularly, however, reject the charge. “For him, a Hindutva identity may be important but he does not favour any caste,” a lawyer said. Senior Advocate Srinivasa Raghavan, who has known Swaminathan since 2004, described him as “a darling of the Madurai Bench,” adding, “If you ask for a referendum, everyone will support him.”

Others point to politics as the reason for the controversy. According to one account, tensions escalated in May 2025 when a senior counsel and DMK member was muted during a virtual hearing and the court proceeded to pronounce its verdict. That incident, lawyers say, hardened the party’s perception of bias.

Stakeholders, including the state’s lawyers and representatives however, disagree. “There is no single trigger. The government has no business being for or against any particular judge…In justice Swaminathan’s case, the problem begins when he permits his political ideology to creep into his judgments. Even if you back it up with constitutional provisions, you cannot ever allow your personal beliefs and politics to be imported in your judgements and duties as a judge,” another senior counsel, who did not wish to be named, said.

On his part, justice Kaul views the impeachment effort with concern. “What ethos does it set? If every unpopular judgment invites a personal attack on the judge?” he asked. “He is a judge who plays by the book as he understands it, anticipates resistance, and proceeds anyway. As long as he is not upturning any law, following his convictions, there should not be a problem,” he added.

As the political storm around him rages louder than his judgments, justice Swaminathan remains on the bench with nearly five years to go before his scheduled retirement in 2030 -- time enough, supporters and critics alike acknowledge, for his work, rather than the noise around it, to deliver the final verdict on his legacy.