In a major relief for Kanchi Shankaracharya Jayendra Saraswathi and his junior Vijayendra Saraswathi, a special court on Wednesday acquitted them and 21 others for lack of evidence in the murder case of a temple official, A Sankararaman, in Kancheepuram.

Pronouncing the verdict in a crowded court hall amid tight security, Principal District and Sessions Judge C S Murugan declared that all the 23 of the 24 accused stood acquitted as "there is no incriminating evidence" against them. One of the accused, Kathiravan, was murdered in Chennai in March this year.

The judge said the motive for committing the murder was not proved, since Sankararaman's wife and son, Padma and Anand Sharma, had failed to support the prosecution's case.

The two Kanchi seers were among those who had been charged with criminal conspiracy and murder of Sankararaman, the Varadarajaperumal temple manager who was hacked to death in the temple premises on September 3, 2004. Sankararaman had levelled charges of financial misappropriation against the two seers. The Supreme Court transferred the case to Puducherry in 2005 on a petition filed by Jayendra Saraswathi.

Justice Murugan referred to "undue interest and active participation" by then Kancheepuram SP Prem Kumar in the probe, which also found mention in the Supreme Court order while granting bail to Jayendra Saraswathi. The Judge observed that the police officer's action was much beyond what was required under law during the investigation.

Due to Prem Kumar's intervention, a fair and proper probe was not done by the chief investigation officer (CIO), said the court. The CIO failed to do independent investigation and did not place all the materials collected by some of the investigating officers, it said.

In a virtual censure of the police action during the investigation, the court observed that some witnesses were threatened into recording their statements, and some of the accused were kept in illegal custody.

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