The deposed moderator of the Church of North India has been charged with fraud, forgery and theft. On 3 September 2023 the Economic Offences Department of the Madhya Pradesh police arrested the former bishop of Jabalpur, P.C Singh and charged him with criminal breach of trust, cheating, forging documents, and criminal conspiracy while transferring the government land given on lease to the CNI.
Singh, who was deposed from office and removed from the ministry by the CNI last year, is accused of selling land in Jabalpur valued at 30 million Rupees ($360,000) that did not belong to him, and pocketing the proceeds.
In September 2022, the Federal Enforcement Directorate (ED), filed a case against the former bishop after state police raided his office and residence in September 2022. During the raid, police said they found documentation that the value of the bishop’s assets was far in excess of his known source of income. The bishop was arrested at the airport following his return from the Lambeth Conference.
In April 2023, Singh was arrested a second time on money laundering charges.
His third arrest last month comes during a period of heightened persecution of Christians in Madhya Pradesh, which is governed by the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The former bishop’s actions have been trumpeted by Hindu activists to denigrate the state’s Christian minority.
