Kanchi sankararacharyas Jayendra Saraswathi and Vijayendra Saraswathi were today acquitted along with 21 other accused in the sensational murder of a temple manager in a case that saw more than half of the witnesses, including the family of the victim and an approver, turning hostile.
Pronouncing the verdict in a packed-all amidst tight security, Principal District and Sessions Judge C S Murugan declared that all the 23 accused out of 24 stood acquitted of the charges against them as "there is no incriminating evidence against the accused".
One of the accused Kathiravan was murdered in March this year in Chennai. While Sankararaman's son Anand said the judgement was "shocking and unbelievable" and wanted to know who the killers were. The family would decide on whether to appeal against it, he added.
The sankaracharyas preferred not to make any comments to the throng of media outside the court and boarded a car for Tirupati for a visit to Lord Venkateswara temple.
The court said the motive for the commission of murder was not proved, since Padma and Anand Sharma, wife and son of of A Sankararaman, the manager of the famous Varadarajaperumal Temple in Kancheepuram, had failed to support the prosecution case.
In a development that shocked the Hindu world, Jayendra Saraswati, the 69th head of the Kanchi Mutt, which has wide following in South India and abroad, were arrested on Diwali day in November, 2004 when he was in Mahbubanagar in Andhra Pradesh.
They were among those who were charged with criminal conspiracy and murder of Sankararaman, who was hacked to death in the temple premises on the evening of September 3, 2004.
