[Binuilienzync]

The Madras high court on Thursday stayed all further proceedings in the Sankararaman murder case pending before the principal sessions judge, Puducherry, in which Kanchi Acharya and junior pontiff Vijayendra Saraswathi are the prime accused.

Justice K. Suguna granted the stay for eight weeks on a petition filed by advocate P. Sundararajan, who also sought a direction to the registrar (vigilance) to commence a statutory investigation by filing an FIR on his complaint and a re-trial of the case.

When the petition came up for hearing, Manikandan Vathan Chettiar, counsel for the petitioner, submitted that following the allegation of attempting to bribe the trial

judge, the petitioner gave a complaint to the registrar (vigilance) on August 18, 2011. The registrar informed him that the registry had already received a complaint regarding the purported conversation and the tapes were sent for investigation.
However, he refused to divulge the particulars of the officers and the investigation.

Since the trial court has posted the case for arguments on September 5, the proceedings have to be stayed, Mr Manikandan added.

In his petition, Mr Sundararajan submitted that some tapes of purported conversations between Sankaraacharya, the judge or his representative and some others had emerged regarding alleged payments made and assuring balance sums payable by Sankaraacharya.