Chennai: Dismissing a Habeas Corpus Petition (HCP) seeking to produce the arrested Kanchi Seer Jayendra Saraswathi in court and set him free, the Madras High Court today (Nov 25, 2004) criticised the petitioner for filing the HCP for publicity alone.

Spotlight: Kanchi Jayendra Saraswathi's Arrest

'This is nothing but a vexatious and frivolous petition for publicity,' a Division Bench, comprising Justice M Karpagavinayagam and Justice S Ashok Kumar, observed while dismissing the petition filed by an advocate Wilfred Prakash at the maintainability stage.

The Judges pointed out that the High Court had rejected a bail application filed by the Seer himself and his petition challenging his police remand.

Observing that the advocate had pressed the High Court Registry to post the matter before the bench, the Judges held that the conduct of the petitioner showed that he was not really interested in securing relief for the Seer but interested in getting publicity.

Stating that as per law only the detenu or his relatives could file a HCP on behalf of the detenu, they noted that the Shankaracharya had not sought the relief.

The Judges said the petitioner by his own admission had revealed that he had not obtained any authorisation from the Seer.

There was no material to show that the Pontiff had endorsed the petitioner as 'next' friend, which would entitle him to file the HCP, they said adding that the advocate could have only filed Public Interest Litigation (PIL).