Sankararaman murder case
Sankararaman was the manager of Varadharaja Perumal Temple in Kanchipuram, a town in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu.
He filed a case in a court in 2000, against Jayendra Saraswathi visiting China, quoting that the seers of the Mutt cannot cross ocean, but can take land route.
An investigative journalist named Dhamodaran Prakash in the Tamil weekly Nakkeeran alleged the reasons of the murder being the continuous infuriation by Sankararaman against Jayendrar and Kanchi Mutt.
The report, which claimed that the murder was done at the behest of the seer and the confessions of some of accused who surrendered earlier brought Jayendrar into the spectrum of the case and necessitated his arrest.
Appu is believed to be associated with politicians from major parties and his criminal records have sandalwood smuggling and sand quarrying charges.
Ravi Subramanian, a civil contractor who constructed buildings related to the Kanchi Mutt was alleged to have arranged Appu for the murder.
[4] Both the seers were in Mahabubnagar in Andhra Pradesh when the warrant was issued and the Tamil Nadu Police reached Hyderabad.
[13][14][15] The then Superintendent of Police K Premkumar who made the arrest and S P Sakthivelu, who was the investigating officer, submitted an 1875-page charge sheet before the Judicial Magistrate of Chingalpet.
[16] Ravi Subramanian, who was a civil contractor and co-accused in the case turned an approver,[4] and he was included as a prosecution witness.
[20] Jayendrar was released on bail on 10 January 2005, after two months of his arrest, by an order of the Supreme Court of India, which condemned the Tamil Nadu Police for not gathering credible evidence against the seer.
The court also issued a notice to the Government of Tamil Nadu seeking explanation on detaining Krishnaswamy, one of the key accused in the case and not allowing him to be granted bail.
[25][26] "Out of the 181 prosecution witnesses, 84 turned hostile and this shows that they were under duress to give evidence" The trial was initially planned in Chengalpet court.
[34] A Trichy-based lottery businessman with whom Kathiravan was involved in a land grab issue, was allegedly found to be the reason of the murder.
[22][37] After opinion from Attorney-General Mukul Rohatgi to the central Home ministry, the Puducherry government reversed its decision to file an appeal on the case.
I am doing my duty" J Jayalalithaa, the leader of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) and then Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, was an ardent follower of the Shankaracharya and the Mutt.
The arrest of the Hindu seer in the case was seen as a political mileage for Jayalalithaa to improve her secular image with the Indian National Congress, who were otherwise part of the alliance of the opposing Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam.
He said that the Seer's food was cooked by a Brahmin constable in the prison and allegations about his mistreatment in the jail are wild and not true.
Vajpayee met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and asked that Saraswathi be moved to "some decent guest house".
The Bharatiya Janata Party and the Sangh Parivar, which have been waging a battle against the seer's arrest with their "Hinduism under threat" slogan failed to create any significant response.
[13] The then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh advised the state government to handle the case with care, considering the political tension surrounding it.
[7] The Democratic Progressive Alliance made massive demonstrations in many areas of the State to protest against the BJP's attempt to communalise Saraswati's arrest.
But if you divert and deviate from that direction unmindful of the rights of innocent devotees of the Mutt, it would result not only in diluting the prosecution, but also cast a deep shadow on it.
