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Journalism of Courage
I don’t trust the police. They are not honest. I don’t think I will get justice,’’ Kanchi Shankaracharya Jayendra Saraswati told the Judicial Magistrate at a packed courtroom here today.
The Kanchi seer had been brought here from Vellore jail in connection with a police petition seeking his custody. He is an accused in the brutal killing of a temple manager, Sankara Raman.
‘‘The police never told me that I am being arrested, when they came to me (in Andhra Pradesh). They said I am being taken to the Math to be questioned. There is a conspiracy by the police and other powers,’’ Jayendra Saraswati told the Magistrate. ‘‘Being put in judicial custody is all right, but I will not get fair treatment in police custody,’’ he argued.
The court reserved till tomorrow its verdict on the Tamil Nadu police’s plea, seeking the seer’s custody for five days. First Class Judicial Magistrate-I G. Uttamaraja, who was to deliver his order this evening, said as the arguments were lengthy, he needed more time to peruse the matter.
The verdict would be delivered tomorrow at 10.30 am, he said. And Jayendra Saraswati was sent back to Vellore jail for the night.
It was high drama right from the time Jayendra Saraswati stepped out of a police van on the court premises. Inside, he sat before a fading picture of Tamil poet Tiruvalluvar, kept on a wooden stool, and holding his staff. A heavy deployment of armed policemen struggled to keep the crowd from hindering the proceedings. The police had left nothing to chance — sniffer dogs checked the court complex, while visitors were subjected to metal detectors and body searches.
Jayendra Saraswati’s counsel K.S. Dinakaran protested when the Magistrate asked the seer to sign on the typed transcript of his statement, claiming that by tradition the Sankaracharyas do not sign. The Magistrate, however, did not buy the argument. And the seer finally agreed to put his thumb impression on the paper.
Amid heated arguments, lasting over a couple of hours, Jayendra Saraswati’s counsel challenged the court’s authority on allowing the seer to be put in police custody. He argued that once a court has passed an order remanding an accused to judicial custody for 15 days, the same court cannot review the order before that period expires.
The Magistrate shot back, asking if that was so how did the same courts that remanded an accused could consider a bail plea.
Saraswati’s counsel also argued that the police could easily interrogate the accused in jail and there was no need to send him to police custody.
As the court pronounced that it would pass its orders at 10.30 am tomorrow, Saraswati objected, claiming it was Rahukalam (inauspicious period) till 12.30 tomorrow. The seer suggested that the court pass the order later. But the Magistrate rejected the plea, saying that the court would not take such things as ‘‘Rahukalam’’ into cognisance.
