Seer case: SC adjourns hearing on bail plea

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday asked Tamil Nadu police to produce specific evidence to support its contention for continuing detention of Kanchi Sankaracharya Jayendra Saraswathi in the Sankararaman murder case.
During the hearing which remained inconclusive on Thursday, Tamil Nadu police opposed the bail plea of the seer, arguing that the charges against him were punishable with life term or death sentence.
The hearing will resume on Friday, but in what can provide hope to the defence, a bench of Chief Justice R C Lahoti, Justices G P Mathur and P P Naolekar ruled that the grounds on which the bail was denied to Bihar MP, Pappu Yadav, did not apply to the case against the Sankaracharya.
Pappu Yadav''s bail case was decided more on its facts, the Bench said as the pontiff''s counsel Fali S Nariman pooh-poohed the evidence against the seer.
The court was not impressed when the counsel for Tamil Nadu, K T S Tulsi cited certain letters which, according to him, showed up "immoral activities", the seer was allegedly engaged in. "Has the prosecution found any evidence to that regard or is just citing wild allegations levelled by a rank outsider?", asked the Bench, registering its objection to Tulsi''s contention.
Nariman sought to poke holes in the "evidence" cited by Tulsi to justify continued detention of the seer. He,in particular, targeted prosecution''s claim that "a huge amount" of money was withdrawn from the ICICI Bank at Kancheepuram by the Mutt at the behest of the seer for payment to the assailants.
"It is nothing but a figment of imagination of the police", Nariman dared the TN police. No money was ever withdrawn from the bank and realising this the prosecution was now saying that the money amounting to Rs 50 lakh was obtained from sale of a land, Nariman sought to puncture the crucial evidence against Sankaracharya, who has been in jail for about two months.
Tulsi said if the police had not promptly arrested him on the eve of Diwali, the seer would have fled the country as detail flight plans had been prepared and even a helicopter was kept ready.
Tulsi also urged the court not to go deep into the evidence collected by the police so far as it was too premature to weigh the evidence and the chargesheet in the case had not yet been filed.
Madras High Court has already rejected his plea for bail while relying on the apex court''s order in Pappu Yadav case. Nariman, however, said the so called money could not have been paid to assailants in September as a Mutt manager has stated before a court that the money received from sale of land was deposited in a bank in May last year, much before Sankararaman''s murder.