Kanchi Seer Case: Supreme Court Judgement

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The following is an extract of some interesting portions of the Judgement from the Supreme Court of India regarding the Transfer Petition pertaining to the Kanchi Seer case. The Court had passed the judgement on 26th October 2005. A copy of the Judgement, for easy readability is here: Kanchi Seer case: Supreme Court

The original version can be seen at http://www.judis.nic.in/ Choose, "Supreme Court of India", and search. For example, you can search by case number, select Transfer Petition crl (for criminal) and enter the case number 134 for the year 2005.

Please click on the link "More..." to jump to the relevant portion of the Supreme Court Judgement. To come back to this page, please use the "back" button of your web browser.

Grounds under which the Transfer was sought:


		The State machinery in Tamil Nadu and specially the Special Investigation Team headed by Shri Prem Kumar, Superintendent of Police, has shown great zeal and has made extraordinary efforts, much beyond what is required under the law to anyhow secure the conviction of the accused and to achieve that object has procured and fabricated false evidence. More... The Chief Minister...has made statements on the floor of the House ... and has also given some press statements and has thereby pre-empted a fair decision in the criminal trial... ...and thus the accused stand condemned even before the commencement of the trial. More... A solatium of Rs.5.00 lakhs was paid by the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu (to the widow of deceased...) long before completion of investigation and submission of charge-sheet, ...which shows that the State Government is taking special interest in the case and is too keen to secure conviction of the accused in order to justify the stand taken by it. More... Concocted and false cases have been registered ... Even before their bail applications in the present case could be heard, detention orders were passed against them... ...so that even after grant of bail by the court they may remain in custody. More... The advocates appearing for the petitioner (reference to the Kanchi Seer) and other co-accused have been put under great threat on account of lodging of false and fabricated criminal cases against them... More... The Mutt and ... other connected trusts have...183 accounts in banks, which were all frozen by the SIT resulting in paralyzing the religious and other activities of the Mutt and other connected bodies. More... Criminal cases have been lodged against some leading journalists of the country and other prominent personalities...which not only violates right of free speech but also creates an atmosphere of threat against anyone daring to speak or write in favour of the accused and thus the accused seriously apprehend that they would not get a fair trial in the State of Tamil Nadu. More... ...Prem Kumar... is not a fair and upright officer and superior courts have passed strictures against him several times in the past for his uncalled for actions in going out of the way to implicate innocent persons in criminal cases More...

Observations of the Supreme Court


		...while his cross-examination was going on, on the instructions of Shri Prem Kumar, Superintendent of Police and Head of SIT one police inspector by the name of Srinivasan, who is part of the SIT and is said to have been instrumental in effecting the arrest of the approver Ravi Subramaniam, whispered something to him. More... ...The allegation made against him by Ravi Subramaniam at the instance of Shri Prem Kumar and on the whispering made to him by inspector Srinivasan are false, frivolous and vexatious, apart from being motivated and he had never met the wife of Ravi Subramaniam at any time. He has also written that this is an attempt to demoralize and scare him by scandalizing his reputation and casting slur on his character and conduct. More... ...This conduct of the prosecution machinery in prompting the witness to make a totally false allegation against a very senior counsel appearing for the defence is hound to demoralize and scare him and he cannot perform his duty of conducting the case in a fearless and proper manner ...This is bound to result in miscarriage of justice for the accused. More... ...Therefore, the oral threat or inducement allegedly given by the two lady lawyers to Ravi Subramaniam not to give any statement against the petitioner cannot amount to commission of an offence under the said section. Yet the local police submitted a charge-sheet against the aforesaid lady lawyers... More... ...undoubtedly shows that in the prevailing conditions the accused will be seriously handicapped in defending themselves on account of threat and intimidation to their counsel. More... Another strong circumstance...the State machinery is going out of its way in preventing the petitioner and some other accused connected with the Mutt in defending themselves and to secure their conviction by any means, is the action of the SIT in issuing a direction for freezing the accounts of the Mutt in the banks... More... ... The result whereof was that the entire working of the Kanchi Mutt came to a standstill. Faced with such a draconian order of the State authorities... More... ...It is noticed in the judgment that the Manager of the Mutt was called at least 15 times for interrogation... More... ...The police called for title deeds relating to the properties, which had no connection with the criminal case... More... ... Discretion to use the power should be used and exercised cautiously, failing which, it becomes misuse of discretion and tainted with arbitrariness... More... ...Such an organization cannot be paralysed or closed down virtually... More... A word of caution to the Special Investigation Team: ...if you divert and deviate from that direction unmindful of the rights of innocent devotees of the Mutt, it would result not only in diluting the prosecution, but also cast a deep shadow on it... More... ...it is not for the police to interfere with the functions of the Mutt... More... ...It is not for the Special Investigation Team dealing with a murder and assault case to plunge into the accounts of the Mutt, and paralyse its functions... More... Dr. Dhavan...sought to justify the freezing of the accounts...We (the Supreme Court) are not impressed by the submission made by Dr. Dhavan More... ...the order of the High Court allowing the writ petition and setting aside the direction issued regarding freezing of the accounts has attained finality as the same has not been challenged in any higher forum... More... ...is a clear pointer to the fact that the State machinery anyhow wants to paralyse the entire working of the Mutt and the associated trusts and endowments in order to put pressure upon the petitioner and other co- accused who are in any manner connected with the Mutt so that they may not be able to defend themselves... More... ...The action of freezing the accounts demonstrates as to what extent the State machinery can go while prosecuting the petitioner in the Sankararaman murder case... More... ...the invocation of Goondas Act...while they had still not been granted bail in the present murder case. N. Sundaresan is a Gold Medalist of B.Com. and retired as Class I Officer in the Reserve Bank of India...The detention order was challenged by these accused by ...and all the detention orders were quashed. More... ...not only the State machinery is being used to cause harassment to the accused in the murder case in every possible manner but even those, who have written any kind of article or have given any press statement or interview criticizing the action of the State in arresting and involving the petitioner Jayendra Saraswathi in the murder case of Sankararaman, have not been spared and criminal cases have been lodged against them... More... ...shows that even expressing any kind of dissent against the prosecution of the petitioner either in an article which is published in a newspaper or by giving interview to media or a press statement is not being tolerated in the State of Tamil Nadu and by launching prosecution an atmosphere of threat and fear has been created to stifle any kind of dissent. According to the learned counsel the filing of the complaints amounts to violation of the fundamental rights of free speech guaranteed under the Constitution... More... ...an amount of Rs.5.00 lakhs was paid by way of solatium by the Chief Minister to Padma Sankararaman, widow of Sankararaman (deceased)...Learned counsel has submitted that there is no occasion for paying an amount of Rs.5.00 lakhs from public exchequer... ...it is urged, the widow of the deceased can go to any extent and would speak whatever the prosecution agency wants her to say. The fact that an amount of Rs.5.00 lakhs was paid to the widow of the deceased Sankararaman on 24.11.2004 in the Secretariat building, which was widely covered in the media, is not disputed from the side of the State. More... ...We have discussed above many facets of the case which do show that the State machinery in Tamil Nadu is not only taking an undue interest but is going to any extent in securing the conviction of the accused by any means and to stifle even publication of any article or expression of dissent... More... ...The affidavits and the documents placed on record conclusively establish that a serious attempt has been made by the State machinery to launch criminal prosecution against lawyers, who may be even remotely connected with the defence of the accused. The Superintendent of Police, SIT and police inspector connected with the investigation even went to the extent of prompting the approver Ravi Subramaniam to make insinuation against a very senior counsel... More... ...leads to an inference that the State machinery is not only interested in securing conviction of the petitioner and the other co-accused but also to bring to a complete halt the entire religious and other activities of the various trusts and endowments and the performance of Pooja and other rituals in the temples and religious places in accordance with the custom and traditions and thereby create a fear psychosis in the minds of the people. This may deter any one to appear in court and give evidence in defence of the accused. Launching of prosecution against prominent persons who have held high political offices and prominent journalists merely because they expressed some dissent against the arrest of the petitioner shows the attitude of the State that it cannot tolerate any kind of dissent, which is the most cherished right in a democracy guaranteed by Article 19 of the Constitution... More... ...Taking into consideration the entire facts and circumstances of the case and the material on record, we have no hesitation in holding that the petitioner and other co-accused of the case have a reasonable apprehension that they will not get justice in the State of Tamil Nadu. We would like to clarify here that we are casting no reflection on the district judiciary in the State of Tamil Nadu. But it is the actions of the prosecuting agency and the State machinery, which are responsible for creating a reasonable apprehension in the mind of the petitioner and other co-accused that they will not get justice if the trial is held in any place inside the State of Tamil Nadu. We are, therefore, of the opinion that the interest of justice requires that the trial may be transferred to a place outside the State of Tamil Nadu. More... Satyameva Jayatey!

Satyameva Jayatey!