The Principal District and Sessions Judge C S Murugan, who acquitted 23 persons including the two Kanchi seers in the sensational Sankararaman murder case today, concluded that the commission of murder was not proved as some witnesses turned hostile and some failed to support the prosecution case.
"The murder of Sankararaman is not proved since more than 20 prosecution witnesses examined to prove the commission of murder by A7 to A12 (Rajinikanth, Ambigapathy, M Bhaskar, KS Kumar, Anandakumar and Anilkumar) turned hostile and some of them though not turned hostile but failed to support the prosecution case," the Judge said in his 253-page order.
A total of 189 witnesses were examined and 83 of them turned hostile.
The family members of Sankararaman, wife, son and daughter, had failed to support prosecution case, the verdict stated.
For instance, Sankararaman's wife Padma and son Anand Sharma failed to support the prosecution case for motive for the commission of murder, the judge observed.
"The wife of deceased Sankararaman, Padma and daughter Uma Maithierayee who identified the accused during identification parade, failed to support the prosecution case," he said.
Further, payment of gratification to the 'murderers' A7 to A12 and to the fake accused A16 to A20 were also not proved, the order, which gave a massive relief to the two Kanchi seers, said.
The 10 witnesses examined to prove the payment of gratification to the fake accused turned hostile and hence, the said payment of gratification is not proved, the Judge said.
"Neither substantive nor reliable evidence is available on record to corroborate the testimony of hostile witnesses or the evidence of P.W.158(Rajendiran, the then Judicial Magistrate-I,Chengalpet) and P.W.159 (Mahalakshmi, the then District Munsif-cum-Judicial Magistrate, Thirukazukundram) who conducted the identification parade to fix the identity of the accused, he observed.
