NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to hear anticipatory bail plea of two church priests in Kerala sex scandal case and asked the state government not to arrest them till July 19 when it would take up their petitions.

A bench of Justices A K Siri and Ashok Bhushan said that hearing would take some time and adjourned the case to July 19. Senior advocate V Giri, appearing for the state government, assured the court that it would not take any action against the priest till next date of hearing.

The priests, Sony Varghese and Jaise K George of the Malankara Syrian Orthodox Church , moved the anticipatory bail plea after Kerala HC refused to grant them relief.

The crime branch on July 2 registered a case against four priests, including Varghese and George, on the basis of statements of a woman belonging to the same church accusing them of sexually assaulting her on many occasions. The woman has alleged that all the four priests had misused her confessions to sexually exploit her.

The priests rejected the woman’s allegations that they had sexually assaulted her and contended that the crime was registered against them “solely at the instance of the political pressure exerted by certain vested interests to derive political mileage”.

