Chennai: Adjourning hearing of the bail plea of Kanchi Seer Jayendra Saraswathi till tomorrow (Nov 18, 2004), the Madras High Court today (Nov 17, 2004) made it clear that its hearing would have no bearing on the Kancheepuram Judicial Magistrate dealing with a State petition for police custody.

Spotlight: Kanchi Jayendra Saraswathi's Arrest

"It is made clear that pendency of the bail application will not come in the way of the Judicial Magistrate considering the application of the State seeking police custody (of Shankaracharya) in accordance with law," Justice R Balasubramanian held, accepting a contention by the prosecution, while hearing the Seer's bail application.

At the fag end of the day, counsel for the Seer, senior advocate Ram Jethmalani during the course of his arguments on the bail application, sought to restrain the Magistrate from going ahead with Tamil Nadu's request for police custody during pendency of the bail plea.

The Judge said he could not come in the way of the Magistrate exercising his statutory powers of granting police custody or not. The application for police custody will be heard tomorrow.

Appearing on behalf of the State, Supreme Court lawyer K T S Tulsi contended that the bail application should not come in the way of the Magistrate exercising his power under section 167 (2) CrPC.

He pointed out that according to law the prosecution had only 15 days time, from the date of arrest, to seek police custody of the person arrested. A week had already passed and once the time lapsed the police would lose its right, he said.