The Madras High Court hearing an anticipatory bail plea by the Senior Acharya on Wednesday (Feb. 3) wondered as to why a separate case was registered against the Kanchi Math Accountant and its former Manager, and asked the prosecution on how the provisions dealing with cheating, forgery and using forged documents could be invoked in the case. The Math accounts were not the government accounts and the Math authorities had lawful right to operate them.
When the matter came up for hearing, Justice M. Thanikachalam sought to know how the case was registered under the various Sections of the Indian Penal Code. Even assuming that money had been drawn from the Math accounts and paid to the assailants in the case, and it had been suppressed from the account books by manipulation. An offence under Section 201 of the IPC could alone be charged and clubbed with the main murder case, observed Justice M. Thanikachalam. The Judge was making observations during the course of preliminary arguments on anticipatory bail application from Kanchi Acharya Jayendra Saraswati who apprehended arrest in this case also. The Math Accountant and the former Math manager had already been remanded in judicial custody in this case.
“It is their account and they have lawful authority to operate it. It is not the government’s account” the judge said. The charge of falsification of documents would like only if it was done without lawful authority, he said adding that the Math authorities had lawful authority to operate their bank accounts.
Even in the case of Section 201, the Judge said, the charge should come only along with the murder charge and not in the form of a separate case.
Justice Thanikachalam posted to Feb. 4, for further hearing on the petition, as the Public Prosecutor handling the case was not available today.
And on Feb. 4, following a plea from the Public Prosecutor to grant time to file a detailed counter-affidavit, the judge adjourned the case till February 11.
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