The Hindu : Front Page : Hearing on plea for CBI probe tomorrow

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Nov 24, 2004

Front Page

Front Page

Hearing on plea for CBI probe tomorrow

By J. Venkatesan

NEW DELHI, NOV. 23. The Supreme Court will hear on November 25 a public interest litigation petition filed by a former Bharatiya Janata Party Member of Parliament seeking a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation into the arrest of the Kanchi Sankaracharya, Sri Jayendra Saraswathi, in a murder case.

A five-Judge Constitution Bench, comprising the Chief Justice, R.C. Lahoti, and Justices V. Shivaraj Patil, K.G. Balakrishnan, B.N. Srikrishna and G.P. Mathur, fixed the date of hearing after a mention was made by the petitioner's counsel, Harsh Vir Pratap Sharma, for early hearing of the matter.

The petitioner, B.P. Singhal, alleged that the Tamil Nadu police was showing bias against the Acharya and had falsely implicated him in a murder case. The Acharya's arrest on Diwali on the pretext that he planned to flee to Nepal only exposed the mala fide investigation. The manner of the arrest indicated a violation of several guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court in the D.K. Basu case.

The petitioner noted that the prosecution, while opposing the bail application in the Madras High Court, stated that there was a strong motive for the murder. Citing apex court judgments, he said motive alone could not be the ground for arrest. The liberty of a citizen could not be allowed to be curtailed without there being strong and clinching evidence that clearly connected the crime with the accused.

He alleged that the peculiarity of the case was that the prosecution started collecting evidence against the Acharya only after his arrest, and even today there was no material justifying his arrest.

This exposed the mala fide intentions of the Government to incarcerate the Acharya. In the light of the material on record and the actual position, the request for police custody for interrogation was patently an afterthought only to humiliate him.

Had there been any genuine need for police custody, such a request ought to have been made at the time of initial remand.

The petitioner alleged that the police had been seizing several materials from the Kanchi Mutt, and there was every possibility that to justify the arrest some more false evidences might be created. Citing various judgments, he said that whenever there was an allegation of manipulation of records by the police, the apex court had ordered a CBI probe into such incidents to prevent unfair and mala fide investigation.

He said the enormous pressure under which the police was working also suggested that the State Government, by way of evil design, might build a case to take over the Mutt. Therefore, in the interest of justice and rule of law, the apex court should order a CBI probe into the arrest of the seer.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Front Page

News Update

Stories in this Section

Pakistan for sustainable peace in South Asia: Shaukat Aziz

Parties have promised smooth session: Somnath

Jayalalithaa hits out at Karunanidhi, Joshi

Opportunistic and unprincipled politics, says Jayalalithaa

Arrest intimation served on Acharya in assault case

`Trial proceedings will be delayed if Appu is allowed to go abroad'

Hearing on plea for CBI probe tomorrow

U.S. sees terror threat to interests in India

Bomb scare