A city court has acquitted prime accused Kanchi Sankaracharya Jayendra Saraswati and eight others in the auditor Radhakrishnan assault case. Radhakrishnan, an auditor at the Sankara Mutt, his wife Jayasree and assistant Krishnan were allegedly attacked at their Mandaveli residence on September 20, 2002.
“As one person had turned approver and two others had died, there was not enough evidence to prove the charge against him. The remaining 8 were acquitted as a result. They will definitely appeal against the judgment, it will not end here," said public prosecutor Vijayaraj.
In 2002, the Foreshore Estate police registered a case against Sri Jayendra Saraswati and 12 others - Sundaresa Iyer, Raghu, Appu alias Krishnasamy, Kathiravan, Meenakshisundaram, Anand alias Ananda kumar, Lakshmanan, Bhoominathan, Kannan, China Kumar and Ravi Subramaniam.
Sri Jayendra Saraswati was arrested on November 11, 2004, in connection with the Sankararaman murder case. Though the incident took place in 2002, the Foreshore Estate police pursued it vigorously only after the shocking murder of Sankararaman, a bitter critic of Sankara Mutt, on the premises of the famed Varadharahaperumal temple in Kancheepuram.
The court issued fresh summons to five witnesses who failed to appear before the court despite a previous round of summons.
After a decade long legal battle, trial commenced in 2012. The case in fact has seen a number of twists and turns in a short period. The approver in this trial, Ravi Subramaniam, turned hostile during the course of the proceedings. So did five other witnesses of the 22 examined so far by the prosecution. Of the total of 81 witnesses, 10 have died since the occurrence of the alleged crime. The next hearing in the trial will take place on Tuesday.
On March 29th 2016, the Acharya, who appeared before the court accompanied by a posse of lawyers and his disciples, was allowed to sit and answer over 90 questions that ran to over 63 pages, according to The Hindu. He took about an hour to answer the questions. He reportedly responded with a “no” or “I do not know” to most of the questions. Other accused, including Sundaresa Iyer and Raghu, also submitted that the charges against them were false.
Final arguments commenced on April 5. Counsel Venkatraman and K.M Subramaniam appeared for the Kanchi mutt head. The hearing of the final verdict was posted to April 29th.