New Delhi: The Supreme Court today (Dec 15, 2004) listed for Friday (Dec 17, 2004) hearing on a petition filed by Kanchi Shankaracharya Jayendra Saraswathi seeking bail in the Sankararaman murder case.

The three judge Bench headed by Chief justice R C Lahoti fixed the hearing for Friday on the Special Leave Petition filed by the Seer after his counsel senior advocate S S Nariman mentioned the matter before the court.

The court said as this appeal has been filed by the Shankaracharya, the other petition pending before it would "obviously" become infructous.

The Seer had challenged the Madras High Court order of December 8 rejecting his petition for bail in the case. The Shankaracharya was arrested on Nov 11 and since is in custody.

The Shankaracharya, in his special leave petition, said Sankararaman, who was murdered, used to be associated with the earlier Seer, often referred to as Parmacharya, till the latter's demise in 1994.

"Having been accustomed to the very traditional and orthodox approach of the Parmacharya in all activities of the Kancheepuram Mutt, Sankararaman was not well disposed towards Swami Jayendra Saraswati, who though a Vedic scholar, was extending the activities of the Mutt to various other fields of education, healthcare and providing basic needs to the rural poor."

By stages, Sankararaman became more and more disenchanted with the present pontiff in view of the fact that he was to some extent deviating from the orthodox and traditional activities of the Mutt, which were then confined to religious rituals and propagation of Vedic philosophy and the Hindu theology, Shankaracharya said in his petition.

As a result, after the demise of Parmacharya (the earlier Pontiff) Sankararaman disassociated himself from the Mutt and came to be employed at the Bharadaraja Swami temple as its manager, he said.

The deceased then started criticising Swami Jayendra Saraswathi over his secular activities and sent out letters not only to officials of the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowment Board but also to the general public, faulting the petitioner over his various activities, he said.

The Seer said "Sankararaman went to the extent of accusing the petitioner of mismanaging the affairs of various trusts run by the Mutt."

"As far as Sankararaman's insinuating letters either sent in his own name or under pseudonyms, which were circulated to general public, came to be ignored and the Mutt officials did not chose to bring them to the notice of the petitioner as they had become accustomed to such baseless allegations levelled by the deceased," the Shankaracharya said.

Pooh-poohing Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa's claim in the Assembly on November 17 that "clinching evidence" was available with the prosecution, the Shankaracharya said the cellphone in question was never owned by the petitioner and that there was no evidence to establish even prima facie that the petitioner had ever had any conversation with the alleged assailants of Sankararaman.

Rejecting the claim of the prosecution for withdrawal of huge money from ICICI Bank ATM for the purpose of giving it to the alleged assailants, the petitioner said the Mutt had no bank account with ICICI Bank, Kancheepuram, as claimed by the prosecution.