Kanchi Shankaracharya Jayendra Saraswathi, who was arrested in Andhra Pradesh on Thursday night in connection with the murder of a former Sankara Mutt official, was produced before a magistrate in Kancheepuram on Friday morning, and was remanded to judicial custody in Vellore jail till November 26.
Shortly after he was brought to Chennai by a Tamil Nadu special police team from Mehboob Nagar near Hyderabad by a state-owned aircraft, Jayendra Saraswathi, whom the opposition parties in the state had accused of having considerable clout with the All Indian Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam government, was brought by road to Kancheepuram, the seat of the Pontiff.
He was produced before Judicial first class magistrate G Uttamaraj.
During the hour-long proceeding, the magistrate ordered the remand and told Shankaracharya's counsel Y Thiyagarajan that the jail authorities would decide on the medical treatment to the pontiff since he claimed that he was an insulin-dependent diabetic patient.
The arrest of the politically-famous 70-year-old Shankaracharya, who in the last two years had acted as a mediator in the Ayodhya issue between the Sangh Parivar and Muslim organisations, followed investigation into the murder of Sankararaman, who had managed the accounts of the Mutt during late Paramacharya Chandrasekerendra Saraswthi's period.
Sankararaman was reported to have had differences with Jayendra Saraswathi and had left the mutt and worked as the manager of the famous Vaishnavite Varadharajaperumal temple in Kancheepuram, where he was murdered on September 3 last.
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