Criminal indictment handed down against Bishop Dorai: The Church of England Newspaper, June 3, 2011 p 8.

Bishop Dorai (centre) after his release on bail last year

First published in The Church of England Newspaper.

The Crime Branch-CID of the Tamil Nadu Police has filed a 500 page charge sheet with the Chief Magistrate in Coimbatore, stating the Bishop in Coimbatore of the Church of South India, the Rt. Rev. Manickam Dorai, his two brothers, and four other accomplices with defrauding his diocese of over £500,000.

The May 17 indictment of Bishop Dorai, follows upon an Oct 2010 report by an auditing team led by retired Karnataka High Court Justice Michael Saldhana, former Karnataka Director General of Police A J Anandan and bank auditor C E Sarasam that found substantial evidence of criminal behavior by the bishop.

It said Bishop Dorai had pledged diocesan bank accounts, trust funds and pension funds as collateral for personal loans, sold admissions to diocesan schools, took kickbacks on building contracts and diverted diocesan funds for his personal use.  They found the bishop had authorized the sale of diocesan property to real estate developers at approximately 20 per cent of their market value, in return for what the committee believes were kickbacks from the real estate developers.

“These transactions are not a mere case of mismanagement but point to rank dishonesty and criminality,” the committee said.

At its Nov 30 meeting of the Executive Committee of the CSI Synod declined to take disciplinary action against the Bishop in Coimbatore.  The bishop remained suspended from office, but the synod voted to allow the criminal case to guide the proceedings of any ecclesiastical trial.