M A I N   N E W S

SC reserves verdict on seer’s bail plea
Legal Correspondent

New Delhi, January 7
The Supreme Court today reserved its judgement on the bail petition of Kanchi Shankaracharya Jayendra Saraswati in the Shankararaman murder case, while the seer made a strong plea for his release from the jail on the condition that he would not go to the Kanchi Mutt till the police completed the investigation and filed the chargesheet.

“I will not go to the Mutt and the junior pontiff is there to look after its affairs till the chargesheet is filed, if they think I will influence the witnesses who mostly are Mutt officials,” said Shankaracharya in a plea made through his advocate, who concluded his arguments pointing many ‘loopholes’ in the prosecution theory linking the pontiff to the murder.

A Bench of Chief Justice R.C. Lahoti, Mr Justice G.P. Mathur and Mr Justice P.P. Naolekar reserved the judgement after seer’s advocate Fali S. Nariman virtually ‘demolished’ the Tamil Nadu Government’s allegations about withdrawal of Rs 50 lakh by the pontiff from ICICI Bank for payment to the assailants, cited as main chain of conspiracy linking him to the crime.

On being asked persistently about the money withdrawal by the court, Tamil Nadu Government counsel K.T.S. Tulsi could not give satisfactory details and merely could refer to two alleged transactions of Rs 3 lakh and Rs 5 lakh.

Nariman said, “The pontiff has already been in the custody for almost 60 days and the police is duty-bound to file a chargesheet within 90 days of his arrest.”

Pointing out various ‘twists and turns’ being given to the case by the prosecution, Nariman, reading out from the bank records, said no money was ever withdrawn from the ICICI Bank either before the murder of Shankararaman or after it.

On the new theory given by the police that the Rs 50 lakh amount was the advance payment of the proceeds of the sale of a land of the Mutt and kept in the room of the seer since the deed was signed on February 7, 2004, Nariman said, “This was a total lie being told by the police.”