A local court on Monday fixed for August 5 examination of defence witnesses in the Sankararaman murder case in which the Kanchi Seer Jayendra Saraswathi and his junior Vijayendra Saraswathi are the main accused.
Principal District and Sessions Judge T Ramasamy set the date following a plea for grant of some time for examination of the defence witnesses as they could not be present today.
Questioning of all the accused in the case had been completed on July 22 and the date for commencement of arguments by prosecution and defence counsels was to be decided today.
Special Public Prosecutor N Devadoss told reporters that if the defence witnesses did not turn up even on Aug 5, arguments by prosecution and defence counsels would commence on that day itself.
Only seven of the 24 accused were present in the court today and the absentees included the two seers.
Sankararaman, Manager of Varadarajaperumal temple in Kancheepuram, was allegedly murdered on the premises of the temple on September 3, 2004.
The two seers were charged under IPC sections 120—B (criminal conspiracy) and 302 (murder).
The trial in the case was shifted from Chengalpet in Tamil Nadu’s Kancheepuram district to Puducherry on a directive from the Supreme Court, following a petition filed by Jayendra Saraswathi in October 2005.
A total of 189 witnesses were examined since commencement of the trial here in April 2009. Of them, 81 had turned hostile.
