Thursday, March 24 2005 12:44 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Kancheepuram: A court extended the remand of the accused in the Sankararaman murder case till Mar 31 today (Mar 24, 2005).

Extending the remand, Judicial Magistrate-I G Uthamaraja directed all including those on bail to be present in the court positively in the court on that day.

The copies of the chargesheet in the case could not be served even today.

The Senior Kanchi Seer Jayendra Saraswathi and Junior Seer Vijayendra Saraswathi came to the court from Kalavai and Chennai respectively. All the other accused were also present.

Defence counsel K S Dinakaran presented a petition on behalf of Jayendra Saraswathi requesting for filling of a supplementary chargesheet stating that a summons had been issued by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) to Dr Bhasker, who solicited subscriptions through internet for meeting various expenses including fighting of the case.

Dinakaran argued that the SIT has not yet finished the case. "Since the matter is under further investigation, it is desirable, just and proper that this court should await the further report and till then the proceedings in this case may be deferred."

The Public Prosecutor argued that the investigations have been completed and the chargesheet copies were ready. The petition was not maintainable as the case has been dismissed by the Madras High Court on March 22.

The Madras High court had on March 22 disposed off a petition of Dr S Bhaskaran seeking to quash summons issued to him by the SIT after the Public Prosecutor said that the summons would not be pursued.

K T Palani and Senthilkumar arrested for "proxy surrender" were present in the court while R Arumugham, who was also on bail, was absent.

Later, talking to reporters the Prosecutor Thyagarajan said Arumugham could appear in the court before the court held video conferencing of the accused who were in the jails in the afternoon.

Arumugham would be served warrant if he failed to appear before the court today, he said.