NEW DELHI, 26 November 2004 — Two major issues came up in the Indian Supreme Court, and the apex court issued a notice to the state and center on one while dismissing the second, a public interest litigation seeking the transfer of probe into the murder case against Kanchi Shankaracharya Jayendra Saraswati to CBI.
The Kanchi seer has been arrested in connection with the murder of a Kanchi mutt official. A five-judge constitution bench, headed by Chief Justice R. S. Lahoti, heard the petition, filed by former Rajya Sabha parliamentarian B.P. Singhal of the BJP.
Dismissing the petition, the bench said that the petitioner had no locus standi to “invoke extraordinary jurisdiction of the court.” The petitioner had also not made any effort to verify the facts, the bench said.
The court said the petitioner has not even filed the copy of the FIR in the case against Shankaracharya which could have enabled the bench to formulate an opinion regarding the fairness of the investigation.
The petitioner has also not been joined by any of the accused persons in the Sankaraman murder case, in which Shankaracharya is an accused, casting a doubt on the locus standi of the petitioner.
The petition claimed that the Tamil Nadu police have shown bias against the Shankaracharya. It also said that the manner of his arrest indicated a violation of several guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court.
Commenting on the issue, Union Law Minister Hansraj Bharadwaj said that a CBI inquiry into the Shankaracharya case would help, given the controversy surrounding the case. “Public confidence can only increase as this will be an independent inquiry. So there’s no harm in it,” said Bhardwaj.
Meanwhile, in a fresh development to the ongoing investigation into the murder case, the Kanchipuram court has remanded another person to one-day police custody.
The accused Anil was arrested on Wednesday by the Tamil Nadu police. According to the police, he was responsible for arranging a car and weapons for the culprits.
The police produced him in the court today and sought his custody for five days. However, the judge has granted only one day of police remand.
Interestingly, this arrest has been made after the two accused, Kathiravan and Rejini alias Chinna, arrested on Nov. 9, turned hostile saying they were pressurized by the police into making their earlier statements. They told Kancheepuram judicial magistrate G. Uttamraja that the statements were extracted from them.
On the issue of whether the government (center and Jammu and Kashmir) policy toward “surrendered” militants actually contributes toward Kashmiri youth deliberately taking up militancy while also securing compensation, the Supreme Court issued notices on a petition seeking stay on the implementation of the center-approved policy of the Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s J&K government toward rehabilitating surrendered militants.
The bench comprising of Chief Justice Lahoti and Justice G. P. Mathur directed the center and the state government to file their response to the petition within four weeks.
The petition questions the policy of granting a compensation of 1.5 lakh rupees and a monthly pension of 2,000 rupees for three years to surrendered militants, stating this would encourage youth to take up arms against national forces and kill innocent citizens. The petitioner argued that this policy would encourage militancy in other states.
