New Delhi : The Supreme Court on Monday directed the sessions court in Pondicherry hearing the Sankararaman murder case, involving the Kanchi Sankaracharya Sri Jayendra Saraswathi, not to proceed with the trial until further orders.

A Bench of Justice K.G. Balakrishnan and Justice D.K. Jain passed the order on a special leave petition (SLP) filed by the Sankaracharya, main accused in the case, challenging a Madras High Court judgment allowing the Tamil Nadu Government to have its own public prosecutors for conducting the trial in Pondicherry.

The Bench directed that the matter be listed for further hearing in the second week of July.

Bench's observation

After hearing senior counsel Fali Nariman, appearing for the Sankaracharya, and senior counsel Rajeev Dhavan for Tamil Nadu, the Bench observed that once the case was transferred out of a State, it was only the responsibility of that State to appoint a prosecutor to conduct the trial.

The Bench told Mr. Dhavan: "You [the State] have no business in Pondicherry. You cannot go there and conduct the case. Tamil Nadu should hands off from this case. Pondicherry has a prosecuting agency and they will conduct the case."

To a question from the Bench as to which State should prefer an appeal in the event of the case ending in acquittal of the accused, Mr. Nariman, quoting an earlier apex court judgment, said "it is only the State where the case if transferred should file an appeal."

`No bias'

Mr. Dhavan said that no bias was attributed to the public prosecutor and it was not for the accused to choose his own prosecutor. He argued that even after the case was transferred Tamil Nadu continued to be the prosecuting agency and it could appoint its own prosecutors to conduct the case.

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