A sessions court in Chennai on Monday framed charges against the Kanchi Sankaracharya Jayendara Saraswathi and 10 others in the Radhakrishnan assault case and set August 27 as the trial date.
The Kanchi seer is accused of masterminding the assault on the former auditor of the math, G Radhakrishnan for threatening to expose the alleged murky happenings in the math. According to the police, at the behest of the Acharya, hirelings of gangster Appu attacked Radhakrishnan, his wife and an attendant with sharp weapons at his residence in Chennai on September 20, 2002.
First additional sessions judge Mohamed Issath Ali framed charges under Sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 307 (attempt to murder) and 109 (abetment) of the Indian Penal Code against Jayendra Saraswati, Kanchi Mutt manager Sundaresa Iyer, Raghu (younger brother of junior Acharya Vijayendra Saraswathi) gangster Appu and hirelings Kathiravan, Meenakshisundaram, Anand, Lakshmanan, Bhoominathan, Kannan and Kumar.
Kanchi math building contractor Ravi Subramaniam has been cited as an approver. Jayendra Saraswathi and other accused were present in
the court when the charges were framed. The police had fileda 600-page charge-sheet in June last year. Investigation into the case had made little progress till the arrest of the seer in November 12, 2004 for the murder of Kancheepuram Varadaraja Perumal temple manager Sankararaman inside the temple premises on September 4, 2004. Sankararaman too had threatened to expose the goings on inside the math and had also sent anonymous letters to Jayendra Sqraswati.
the court when the charges were framed. The police had fileda 600-page charge-sheet in June last year. Investigation into the case had made little progress till the arrest of the seer in November 12, 2004 for the murder of Kancheepuram Varadaraja Perumal temple manager Sankararaman inside the temple premises on September 4, 2004. Sankararaman too had threatened to expose the goings on inside the math and had also sent anonymous letters to Jayendra Sqraswati.
The charge-sheet in the Sankararaman murder case, in which Jayendra Saraswathi, Vijayendra Saraswathi and his brother Raghu are among the 24 accused, was filed in a Sessions Court in Chennai in January 2005. Subsequently, on a petition by the Sankaracharya in the Supreme Court, the case was transferred to Puducherry where it is pending before a sessions judge.