Madras HC rejects Kanchi seer's bail plea

In a setback to his efforts to secure freedom, the Madras High Court today dismissed the second bail application filed by Kanchi seer Jayendra Saraswathi holding that prima facie the Sankaracharya was shown to be guilty of an offence.

Rejecting the seer's plea for bail, Justice R Balasubramanian said "I cannot refrain from saying that the material relied upon by the prosecution would prima facie constitute reasonable grounds to believe that the petitioner is shown to be guilty of an offence punishable with death or imprisonment for life."

The seer was taken into custody on November 11 in connection with the September 3 murder of Sankararaman, manager of the Varadaraja Perumal Temple at Kancheepuram. He was later remanded to judicial custody by a Kancheepuram magistrate's court till December 10.

The judge stated that that Section 437(i)(i) of Cr.PC stood in the way of granting bail to the seer.

The judge said although, the power of the high court in exercising its right to grant bail under Section 439, Cr.PC had not been taken away by Section 437(i)(i), the code, however, restricted the power of the court in considering the application for bail by a person against whom there were "reasonable grounds to believe that he was guilty" of an offence punishable with death or life imprisonment.

The first bail application by the Sankaracharya was dismissed by the judge on November 20.

The judge rejected the contention of the seer's counsel and senior advocate I Subramanian that the legislature had not imposed a restriction on a high court or sessions court to grant bail under Section 439 of Cr.PC.

If the Supreme Court ruling in the Pappu Yadav case was interpreted as a restriction on the court in granting bail it would amount to court legislating, which was impermissible, Subramanian had argued.

The judge accepted prosecution counsel and senior Supreme Court lawyer KTS Tulsi submission that the judgment in the Pappu Yadav case was a binding precedent and therefore, the court had to necessarily follow it.

He said Tulsi had spared no efforts and cited various rulings to show when a judgement could be treated as a binding precedent.

The judge held that at the present stage the court could not go beyond determining if there was prima facie material in support of the charge and could not look for sufficiency of the evidence for a conviction.

On the motive for the murder, the judge noted that according to the prosecution case, the seer was bent upon eliminating Sankararaman at any cost as he had become a thorn in his flesh.

The incriminating materials consisted of several letters written by the deceased to the petitioner, which showed that the seer had a strong motive to eliminate him, the judge observed.

Justice Balasubramanian observed that Tulsi during his arguments, while opposing grant of bail, had submitted that the investigating agency was in possession of "unimpeachable" legal evidence, which showed reasonable grounds to believe that the petitioner was guilty of the offence.

The evidence included a judicial confession by a co-accused Kathiravan, since retracted. According to Tulsi, though the confession stood retracted, it would not vitiate the confession if it was found to be voluntary and the retraction was due to ill-advice or an after thought.

The prosecution had also recorded statements of two witnesses, which disclosed that the assailants were seen in the company of the seer in his office.

A witness had stated that a few days before being murdered, Sankararaman had said if anything happened to him, it would be at the instance of the seer. Tulsi had argued that the apprehension was in the form of a dying declaration, which was admissible as evidence if found true and accepted.

The judge observed that the prosecution also had details and numbers of telephones from which calls were made by some of the assailants to a telephone exclusively used by the seer.

One call had been made shortly after the murder.