In a sensational revelation, the Tamil Nadu government Monday informed the Madras High Court that Shankaracharya Jayendra Saraswathi has confessed to his involvement in the murder of a temple official.
Government counsel K.T.S. Tulsi told the court that the "Kanchipuram Sankaracharya broke down and confessed to his involvement" in the murder of A. Sankararaman, a devotee of the Kanchipuram monastery in Tamil Nadu.
Tulsi said the 71-year-old pontiff, who has millions of followers and who has been in jail since his arrest Nov 11, made the confession to the police. He said the confession had been "videographed".
Tulsi made the observation when the Shankaracharya's bail application came up Monday for hearing for a second time before judge R. Balasubramaniam, who said that he would continue the hearing Tuesday.
Opposing the bail, the prosecution argued that it had "material evidence" against the seer and said it had filed an affidavit to this effect in the court.
The affidavit's copies were made available to the media even before it was filed in court, creating a furore after defence lawyers objected vehemently.
"He (Shankaracharya) seems to be now realising that it was a mistake," the prosecution told the judge.
The pontiff was arrested from Mehboobnagar in Andhra Pradesh on charges of plotting and abetting the murder of Sankararaman, who had begun to accuse the Shankaracharya of wrongdoing.
A judicial magistrate's court in Kanchipuram, about 80 km south of Chennai, placed him in 15 days judicial custody and extended the remand by another 15 days till Dec 10.
The government Monday said his confessions, videoed by police at the Kanchipuram all-women's police station Nov 18 and 19, showed that the pontiff was involved with a woman named Usha.
The police and the local Tamil media have alleged that the pontiff was in touch with a woman and large amounts of money had been transferred to her account. The woman is absconding.
The woman from Srirangam, a temple town near Tiruchirapally, about 400 km south of Chennai, is said to have had conversations with the pontiff on mobile telephones.
The prosecution said that bank transactions "showed (that) large sums were regularly transferred to Usha from the (Kanchipuram) mutt's accounts".
Meanwhile, a sessions court here put off till Tuesday the hearing of the bail application in a second case in which the pontiff had been formally arrested for the second time and given a second concurrent judicial remand till Dec 9.
He has been accused of ordering the killing of another man, S. Radhakrishnan, in September 2002. In this attack, Radhakrishnan, his wife and an assistant were injured.
The bail plea in this assault case came up for hearing Monday before Principal Sessions Judge P. Murugesan.
Police have also begun investigating an attack by unknown assailants on a third person.
The team probing the Sankararaman murder case Sunday questioned Sankararaman's widow and daughter.
Meanwhile, the Kanchipuram monastery has threatened to take legal action against the media if they continued to publish speculative stories about the Shankaracharya.