Himalayan News Service

Chennai, March 19:

The Tamil Nadu government has filed a defamation case here against Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Murli Manohar Joshi for remarks that the state was trying to frame the Shankaracharya of Kanchipuram mutt by slapping cases on him. Shankaracharya Jayendra Saraswathi and his junior Vijayendra Saraswathi were arrested last year for allegedly masterminding the murder of A Sankararaman, a temple official in Kanchipuram, in September 2004. They were released on bail. The state government’s counsel told the principal sessions court yesterday that Joshi, after meeting Jayendra Saraswathi in Vellore prison on November 14 last year, said there was an “ulterior motive to the arrest of the Kanchi seer”.

Joshi allegedly called the arrest of the mutt’s two seers a “conspiracy”. The counsel argued Joshi made the remarks “without verifying facts and had tarnished the image of the (state) government”. Meanwhile, the Madras High Court yesterday pulled up the special investigation team (SIT) set up by the Tamil Nadu government to probe into the charges against the Shankaracharyas and other mutt officials. Besides Sankararaman’s murder, Jayendra Saraswathi faces cases of assault and financial irregularities. The SIT has also filed cases against columnist S Gurumurthy and officials of Sankara Nethralaya. Justice KP Sivasubramaniam said he would ask for a change of judge if the SIT continued to stray from the main case against the Shankaracharya.