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Newindpress.com
HC Judge wants to opt out of Mutt cases
Saturday March 19 2005 00:00 IST
CHENNAI: Justice K P Sivasubramaniam of the Madras High Court on Friday slammed the special investigating team (SIT), Kancheepuram, probing the Sankararaman murder case, for its “fishing expedition tactics” and said he was considering recusing himself from all cases relating to the Shankara Mutt.His sharp comments came in the course of a hearing on a writ petition seeking quashing of the summons to S Bhaskaran, a Chennai-based cardiologist attached to Sankara Nethralaya.
In the website Kanchi-Sathya.org, Bhaskaran had initiated a Campaign for Dharma and appeal to devotees to donate liberally for meeting the legal expenses of the Mutt. That was enough of a provocation for the SIT to summon him to appear before them and explain.
A visibly irritated judge told the prosecution, “If you need any information from anyone on anything, you may as well go to the person concerned and enquire instead of summoning them...”
Wondering whether the SIT wasn’t engaged in a fishing expedition, the judge told the prosecution to advise their client to stick to the case before it instead of branching off in various directions.
He went to the extent of saying that none of the actions of the SIT could be sustained and revealed that he was contemplating opting out of the Mutt cases and suggesting they be heard by some other judge. “All the cases relating to the Mutt are coming before me and I may be blamed later for not passing any orders in favour of the government,” the judge agonised.
Following a submission from Vijay Narain, senior counsel for SIT SP K Premkumar, that no action would be taken against the petitioner, the judge adjourned the matter till March 22. Earlier, Bhaskaran’s senior counsel K Chandru argued that the summons issued by the SIT was without jurisdiction.
Since the SIT was situated in Kancheepuram and the petitioner in Chennai, the former had no territorial jurisdiction to issue the summons under Section 160 Cr.PC. Further there was no criminality in appealing for contribution, he contended.
“All the cases relating to the Mutt are coming before me and I may be blamed later for not passing any orders in favour of the government.”
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