PTI
Puducherry, Dec 19: The principal district and sessions court here on Thursday framed charges against the Sankaracharyas of Kanchi — Jayendra Saraswati and Vijayendra Saraswati — and 22 others, setting the stage for trial in the sensational Sankararaman murder case.
The Kanchi seers are arraigned as the prime accused in the murder of A Sankararaman, manager of the Sri Varadarajaswamy temple at Kancheepuram, on the temple premises on September 3, 2004. They were formally charged with criminal conspiracy, misleading the court by giving false information, criminal trespass and supply of funds to carry out the criminal act.
After principal district sessions' judge D Krishnaraja read out the charges against the 24 accused who were present in the court, all of them pleaded "not guilty". The judge adjourned the case to January 9, on which day a date will be fixed for commencement of trial.
Apart from the two acharyas, the others facing charges include N Sundaresan, administrator of the Kanchi mutt, and M K Raghu, brother of Sri Vijayendra. The other accused are K G Krishnaswamy alias Appu, Kathiravan, Rajnikant alias Rajni Chinna, Ambigapathy alias Ambi, M Bhaskar alias Madu Bhaskar, K S Kumar, Anandakumar alias Anand, Anilkumar alias Anil, Meenakshisundaram alias Sundar, R T Palani, Ravi alias Kuruvi Ravi, Arumugam, Pandian alias Thil Pandian, Satheesh, Devaraj, Arun, Arumugam, Sekhar, Silverstar alias Stalin and Senthilkumar. All the accused were charged under 14 different sections of the IPC.
P Subramaniam alias Ravi Subramaniam, one of the accuse, had turned approver.
Sri Jayendra, the senior Kanchi seer, was arrested in November 2004 and charged with plotting the murder of Sankararaman, who had allegedly been carrying on adverse propaganda against the seer and the mutt's activities. He was granted bail by the Supreme Court in January 2005, and on the same day, Sri Vijayendra, the junior pontiff, was arrested in connection with the case. Sri Vijayendra was also later released on bail.
On a plea by Sri Jayendra that the atmosphere in Tamil Nadu was not conducive for a fair trial in the case, the apex court transferred the case from Chengalpattu sessions court to Puducherry.