Chennai, Aug 25 (IANS): The Madras High Court Thursday stayed for eight weeks the Sankararaman murder trial being held in a Puducherry court in which two seers of the Kanchi Sankara Mutt, Jayendra Saraswati and his junior Vijayendra Saraswati, are the prime accused.

Hearing a petition filed by P. Sundararajan alleging that Jayendra Saraswati had struck a deal with the Puducherry trial court Judge T. Ramaswamy for his acquittal, Justice K. Suguna ordered the interim stay of the trial.

Sundararajan had presented an audio cassette purportedly with the recording of a conversation between Jayandra Saraswati and Ramasamy.

According to Sundararajan, he had to move the high court as no action was taken on his complaint lodged with the Puduchery Sessions Court Vigilance Commissioner.

In the audio cassette, which was played by a Tamil television channel, a male voice was heard saying that the payment would be settled in a week's time and another male voice was heard saying he would take care (of the matter).

Sankararaman, a manager in the Kanchipuram Sri Varadharajaperumal Temple, was murdered inside the temple September 3, 2004.

In November that year Jayendra Saraswati was arrested for plotting the murder near Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh. Vijendra Saraswati was arrested later.

On the orders of apex court the trail was shifted to Puducherry as the accused had pleaded that the trial will not be fair if held in the state. At that time, the AIADMK was in power in Tamil Nadu.

During the course of the trial, 87 of the 189 witnesses who were examined and cross-examined turned hostile.