Accompanied by leader of the INDIA Bloc, DMK Parliamentary Party leader Kanimozhi submitted an impeachment notice to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla seeking removal of Justice GR Swaminathan of the Madras High Court’s Madurai Bench, who has stirred a hornet’s nest with his orders on lighting the ceremonial Karthigai Deepam at a stone pillar near the Sikkandar Dargah atop the rocky Thiruparankundram hillock, above the famed Murugan temple in Madurai.
The impeachment motion, signed by 107 MPs, accuses Justice Swaminathan of ‘judicial overreach’ and acts ‘amounting to misbehaviour’ besides ideological bias in his orders on lighting deepam. The delegation that met the Speaker comprised Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav, Su Venkatesan of CPI(M), the MP from Madurai, DMK MPs, A Raja and TR Baalu, VCK president Thol Thirumavalavan as well as other MPs from the INDIA alliance.
Posting a video of the meeting on her ‘X’ handle, Kanimozhi said Justice Swaminathan’s removal had become necessary since his ‘recent orders and actions have been viewed as disruptive to social harmony and detrimental to the integrity of the judiciary’. The DMK has initiated the impeachment process even as it had approached the Supreme Court challenging the orders passed by the judge, contrary to previous verdicts of a Division Bench in 2017.
சமூக ஒற்றுமையைக் குலைக்கும் நோக்கிலும், நீதித்துறைக்கு களங்கம் ஏற்படுத்தும் விதமாகவும் செயல்பட்டுவரும் சென்னை உயர்நீதிமன்ற மதுரை கிளை நீதிபதி ஜி.ஆர்.சுவாமிநாதன் அவர்களை பதவி நீக்கம் செய்யக்கோரிய தீர்மான நோட்டிஸை, இந்தியா கூட்டணி எம்.பி.களுடன் இணைந்து மக்களவை சபாநாயகர் திரு. ஓம்… pic.x.com/uASRTMh7m3
— Kanimozhi (கனிமொழி) (@KanimozhiDMK) December 9, 2025
In his December 1 judgment on a petition from a Hindu activist, Justice Swaminathan had ordered the temple administration that Karthigai deepam should be lit on December 3 on the stone pillar near the dargah, also said to be a marker installed for the survey undertaken during the early British era. But, the temple authorities lit it at the Uchi Pillaiyar temple, the usual place right above the sanctum sanctorum of the rock cut Murugan temple.
The District Collector had also issued prohibitory orders. When the petitioner approached with a contempt petition, the judge quashed the prohibitory order and directed the petitioner to light the deepam the next day itself at the stone pillar near the dargah with CISF protection. But, the police denied permission citing law and order as well the government’s decision to go in for appeal.
The orders of Justice Swaminathan are contrary to the decision of a Division Bench that dismissed a plea to light the deepam at the pillar near the dargah.
Earlier in 1996, the high court had ruled that only the temple administration could light the deepam, that too, at the Uchi Pillaiyar temple and made it clear that any new location in future should be 75 metres away from the dargah with the approval of the HR&CE Department as reserved in the 1920 court order. As such, critics wonder how the Division Bench that allowed the contempt proceedings of Justice Swaminathan too had not considered this.
Justice Swaminathan has given many judgments criticised as controversial. Hailing from the Tiruvarur district of Tamil Nadu, he earned his law degree from the Salem Law College and Ambedkar Government Law College, Chennai. Enrolled as an advocate in 1991, he was Assistant Solicitor General at the Madurai Bench in 2014 and elevated to the Bench as Additional Judge in 2017. He became a permanent judge in2019.