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A sessions court on Thursday denied bail to Kanchi mutt junior Shankaracharya Vijayendra Saraswati and two others in the Sankararaman murder case.
Sessions court judge G M Akbar Ali dismissed the bail petitions of the junior seer, his brother Raghu and the mutt's manager Sundaresa Iyer, stating that no prime facie case existed for granting them bail.
A Shanmugham, lawyer for the mutt, said they would go on appeal in the Madras high court as soon as they got a copy of the sessions court order.
The counsel for the defence argued that the junior seer was 'suddenly roped in on a flimsy ground' and that no motive had been established by the prosecution against the pontiff.
The judge said his court was not going into the details of the examination of evidence, documents and merits of the case but considered only the bail applications. There were sufficient evidence that both the senior and the junior seers had full knowledge of the day-to-day affairs of the mutt.
"There are prima facie evidences of a meeting that took place in Nazarethpet, near Chennai, between the senior seer and the deceased (Sankararaman) and evidence that the deceased had more resentment towards the junior seer, his brother Raghu and Sundaresa Iyer. Sankararaman's final notice urged for the 'removal of the poisonous successor', and its contents, if proved true, can be more damaging to the junior seer than to the senior," the judge said.