Malicious and baseless reports: Kanchi Mutt

Publication: The Hindu

The Manager of the Kanchi Sankara Mutt, Sundaresa Iyer, today said that the Mutt would be constrained to initiate legal action against some Tamil magazines and a private television channel if they continued to publish/telecast "malicious and baseless" reports causing irreparable damage to the Mutt as well as to the Sankaracharya, Sri Jayendra Saraswathi.

Talking to reporters here, he said the telecast and reports purported to be the details of the interrogation of the Acharya in police custody.

Such "irresponsible news items" not only caused irreparable damage to the reputation of the Acharya and the Mutt but also hurt the sentiments of the followers.

`Malicious propaganda'

Mr. Iyer termed their coverage as nothing but "malicious propaganda" as the police themselves had given an assurance in the court that they would not leak or share any points or news on the investigation in the Sankararaman murder case to a third party. "Such being the case, it only shows that all these news items are nothing but a figment of imagination," he said. Also, interrogation in police custody meant that everything or anything that had transpired between the investigating officer and the Kanchi Acharya remained a secret.

"If at all something had transpired in police custody, it should have come to light on that very day itself since our counsel was allowed to meet the Acharya during the police custody period," he said.

`Mutt cooperative'

Responding to a query on whether the police continued to question Mutt employees, he replied in the affirmative and said the Mutt had given cent per cent cooperation to the police.

Two special police teams — from Chennai and Cuddalore — have arrived here to assist the investigation team. They are said to have come here to assist in the investigation of the Radhakrishnan assault case.