Junior seer arrested; in judicial custody till Jan 24

KANCHEEPURAM, JAN 10 (PTI)

Junior Kanchi Sankaracharya Vijayendra Saraswati was today arrested in a dramatic turn of events in the Sankararaman murder case hours after the senior pontiff Jayendra Saraswati was ordered to be released on bail by the Supreme Court, virtually leaving the religious organisation headless.

A police team led by Kancheepuram Superintendent of Police K Premkumar, who heads the Special Investigation Team on the murder case, took the 35-year-old 70th pontiff wading through a crowd of devotees from the front door at around 6 PM into a waiting police van.

Slapped with the charge of murder and criminal conspiracy as was done on the senior, Vijayendra Saraswati was produced before judical magistrate G Uttamaraj, who remanded him to judicial custody till January 24. He was taken to Chennai central prison.

The arrest of Vijayendra Saraswati, who had been holding fort ever since the arrest of the senior Sankaracharya on Diwali day on November 11 in Karimanagar in Andhra Pradesh, came more than seven after hours the Supreme Court ordered that Jayendra should be released on bail with the condition that he would not not go to the mutt till the police files the chargesheet in the Sankararaman case.

Vijayendra, who was initiated into sainthood in 1983, had already been once summoned and questioned in the murder case by the SIT, which last cancelled its one more summons to him for questioning. Though there was no no official word on the arrest, it is believed that Vijayendra Saraswati was taken into custody in the case relating to the murder in September of the official of the famous Varadarajaperumal temple, who was earlier associated with the mutt, said to be centuries old.

Vijendra was taken to the forest bungalow from where the SIT has been functioning.

Mutt's lawyer Y Thyagarajan told reporters later that the police party "simply barged" into the mutt when the junior seer was performing his puja rituals.

"We do not not know under what sections the junior seer has been taken into custody," he said adding the entry of the police into the mutt was nothing but a "tresspass".

BJP and sangh parivar organisations condemened arrest of the junior Sankaracharya as "malafide" and called it an attempt to "take over" the mutt.

In its order releasing Jayendra Saraswati on bail, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice R C Lahoti said Tamil Nadu had gathered "no evidence or material" against him in the murder case.

"We are of the opinion that prima facie a strong case has been made out for grant of bail to Sankaracharya," the Bench comprising Justice Lahoti, Justice G P Mathur and Justice P P Naolekar said.

The Court directed the seer to deposit his passport with the investigating agency and cooperate in the probe as well as appear before the police as and when required for the purpose.