|
|
the Daily Pioneer
Mutt moves HC to stop TN Govt from freezing A/Cs
The Kanchi mutt on Monday moved the Madras High Court seeking a direction
to restrain the Tamil Nadu Government from interfering with the rights of
the mutt to operate various bank accounts. The plea came up after the State
Government froze the bank accounts of the mutt. The bail plea of the junior
seer will come up for hearing on January 19.
Meanwhile, the BJP said that Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa's statement had
vindicated its fears that the State Government wanted to malign the Kanchi
mutt and asked for the seer and the case to be shifted out of the state
for a "bias-free trial". The BJP asked the political parties
to make their stand clear on the issue and termed as unfortunate the ambivalence
adopted by parties, including the Congress.
Challenging the freezing of its bank accounts which had "rendered the
performance of religious duties impossible", S Mahadevan, manager of
the Kanchi mutt, said in a petition in the High Court, "the latest salvo
fired by the Special Investigation Team is a series of communications sent
to the banks in which the mutt has its accounts."
Pointing out that most of the accounts represented the endowments created
by devotees to carry out religious functions in the mutt, the petitioner
contended that the amounts standing to the credit of the mutt belonged
to a religious denomination and the state had no right to interfere with
the administration and management of property. "It is well settled
that the mutt is a legal entity and will have to be seen as an entity distinct
from the pontiffs, who preside over the mutt ," the petition said.
Meanwhile, the war of words between Chief Minister Jayalalithaa and the
BJP intensified further. Talking to reporters, BJP spokesman Arun Jaitley
said
that Chief Minister's statement on Sunday made it clear that the Tamil
Nadu Government and its police were not investigating into a murder case
but were using it to desperately revive the shrinking political base of
the ruling party. He said the timing of arrest of Shankaracharya on the
eve of Diwali without evidence and the police "inventing" the
confession, showed they were out to malign the seer and the mutt . He said
there was no dispute with the claim of Ms Jayalalithaa that she was under
oath of secular constitution and no religious leader was above law but
as far as Shankaracharya's case was concerned, it was no enforcement of
law but an exercise of police power for political ends.
Meanwhile, Chengalpattu Sessions Court adjourned to January 19 the bail plea
filed of junior Kanchi Acharya Vijayendra Saraswati, arrested in connection
with the Shankararaman murder case.
>>
© Copyright kanchi-sathya.org
No part of this web site may be reproduced without explicit permission from
the webmaster.
Some material put up on this web site are protected by individual
copyrights of the concerned organisations.
This site is optimised for 800 x 600 resolution or higher.