Hearing in Sankararaman murder case adjourned to Nov 5

A local court today adjourned to November 5 the hearing in the Sankararaman murder case in which two Kanchi Mutt seers Jayendra Saraswathi and his junior Vijayendra Saraswathi are the prime accused.
Principal District and Sessions Judge C S Murugan, before whom the hearing came up today, directed all the 23 acccused to be present on that day.
Both the seers and eight other accused were present during the hearing today.
Special Public Prosecutor N Devadoss later told reporters the court had on August 2, 2012, given a direction on a petition by Anand Sharma (son of Sankararaman) that copies of audio and video cassettes with details of proceedings of investigation be made available to him.

But of one of the accused Kadiravan had obtained a stay through a petition in Madras High Court on the court's directives.
With Kadiravan having passed away, the stay became infructuous, the SPP said.

Devadoss said Anand Sharma should clarify at the Nov 5 hearing whether he still insisted on copies of the cassettes as sought for in his earlier petition.
A total of 189 witnesses were examined during the trial between 2009 and 2011 and 81 of them turned hostile.
Sankararaman was allegedly murdered on Sept 3, 2004 in the temple premises and the two seers have been charged under IPC sections of 120-B (criminal conspiracy) and 302 (murder).

The trial was shifted to Puducherry from Tamil Nadu following the Supreme Court direction in October 2005 on a petition filed by Jayendra Saraswathi.