Police arrested two of the key officials in the case in early October. Three other suspects, former CSI General Secretary Pauline Sathyamurthy, her husband, and the former treasurer V. Kasturi, have evaded arrest, according to other church members.
Police had arrested Sathyamurthy’s daughter Benedicta, and the Rev. Robert
Sunil, both of whom had been coordinating the CSI tsunami rehabilitation. The two have not been granted bail.
“Though it is embarrassing, we decided to go ahead with appropriate action when we were convinced about the fraud,” said the Rev. Moses Jeyakumar, CSI general secretary. Jeyakumar filed the criminal case with police on September 26 in Chennai where the church, Indian’s second largest denomination after the Roman Catholic Church, has its headquarters.
Jeyakumar, who in early 2008 succeeded Sathyamurthy as general secretary of the CSI, a union of Anglican, Methodist, Congregational, Presbyterian, and Reformed churches, was speaking to Ecumenical News International on November 2.
The synod of the CSI took action when the U.S.-based Episcopal Relief Development fund complained of apparent fraudulent actions it came across in a 2008 audit involving funds intended to go to rehabilitation of tsunami victims, said Jeyakumar. He asserted that the officials in charge of the tsunami rehabilitation process failed to provide justification for the spending of nearly 80 million Indian rupees (US$1.7 million) from the 176 million rupees the relief agency had transferred to the CSI for those affected by the tsunami that caused devastation in southern and southeast Asia.
After the initial investigation the CSI synod in January set up a commission of inquiry headed by CSI member J. Kanakraj, a retired judge of the Chennai high court. The judge declined to discuss the case with ENI by telephone.
Following its investigations, the commission reported its finding to the CSI executive, which in turn decided to instigate legal proceedings.
“The people have welcomed this step,” Jeyakumar said.
Moses Manohar, a church activist and executive director of the Chennai-based
Inter-Church Service Association, told ENI that the tsunami fraud allegations “point to what ails the church today. While the church is growing, the leadership is degenerating,” stated Manohar who had invoked the ire of some church officials for organizing awareness programs on corruption in churches.
The Rev. G. Dyvasirvadam, the CSI bishop in the Krishna-Godavari diocese, said the case has “at least 50 percent to do with CSI politics.”
Bishop Dyvasirvadam queried the claim that nearly half of the funds had been used fraudulently. He noted that at least 20 million rupees had been spent in his diocese alone with more than 150 houses built for the tsunami victims. Several other dioceses had reported even more relief work from the fund, he added.
Dyvasirvadam, the CSI general secretary prior to Sathyamurthy, is related to one of the suspects.
He said, “Immediately after the name of my nephew [the Rev. Robert Sunil] came up in the case at the CSI synod in January 2008, I removed him from the pastoral ministry. I wanted justice to be done.”
