The Pontiffs of Kanchi Sankara Mutt, Jayendra Saraswathi and Vijayendra Saraswathi,Acquitted in Sankararaman Murder Case Wednesday Nov 27,2013

The Puducherry Sessions Court on Wednesday Nov 27,2013 acquitted the Pontiffs of Kanchi Sankara Mutt, Jayendra Saraswathi and Vijayendra Saraswathi in the Sankararaman murder Case

The others acquitted in the case include the Manager of the Mutt Sundaresa Iyer, junior pontiff Vijayendra Saraswthi’s brother Raghu and K G Krishnaswamy alias Appu

The judge held that the witnesses failed to support the prosecution case that the two Sankaracharyas — Jayendra (78) and Vijayendra (44) -- were part of a conspiracy to eliminate the temple official in September 2004

He also said the witnesses, including Sankararaman’s daughter, failed to identify the accused in the court

 

None of them identified any accused in the court and no incriminating evidence was made out against the accused, the judge noted.

A total of 24 persons were made accused in the case, but one of them,Kathiravan was killed on March 21,2013

During the trial, 189 witnesses were examined between 2009 and 2012, of which 83 turned hostile. 


Note
Sankararaman, who was murdered in his office room in the temple on September 3, 2004 using sharp-edged weapons, had levelled charges of financial misappropriation against the two Sankaracharyas and over the way they ran the Mutt.

The Vishnu Kanchi Police took up investigation following a complaint and a case was registered under section 302 and 34 of Indian Penal code. 

Cases were registered against the two seers under section 120-B (criminal conspiracy) and 302 (murder) of IPC in connection with the murder

The Special Investigation team of Tamil Nadu police filed the chargesheet naming Jayendra Saraswathi as first accused and Vijayendra Sarawathi as the second accused in the case. 

The then Kanchipuram district Superintendent of Police, K Premkumar and another SP Sakthivelu who was the Chief Investigation Officer, submitted the 1873-page charge sheet before the Judicial Magistrate (I) of Kancheepuram G Uthamaraj. 

Jayendra Saraswathi was arrested on Diwali day on November 11, 2004 at Mahbub Nagar in Andhra Pradesh. After two months in jail in Vellore the seer was granted bail by the Supreme Court on January 10, 2005. 

Vijayendra Saraswati was arrested from the mutt on January 10, 2005 and the Madras High Court granted him bail a month later. 

The Sankaracharyas moved the Supreme Court and got the case transferred to Puducherry in 2005 on the ground that the atmosphere in Tamil Nadu was vitiated and there would not be free and fair trial. 

Ravi Subramanian, a civil contractor of the Mutt, who was among the accused, turned approver. He, however, later turned hostile during investigation in the case in Puducherry court on January 21, 2010