In November 2013, a trial court in Puducherry acquitted Jayendra Saraswathi and Vijayendra along with 21 others in the case.
Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi has reportedly suggested that appealing against the acquittal of Kanchi Sankaracharya Jayendra Saraswathi and another pontiff Vijayendra in the 2004 murder case of a temple manager in Tamil Nadu will be futile.
Sources have told NDTV that according to the Attorney General, filing an appeal against the trial court verdict could invite strictures from the High Court as the judge while delivering his order had cited 20 "valid" reasons for the acquittal which criticised the manner in which the investigation was carried out.
In November, 2013 a trial court in Puducherry acquitted the pontiffs of Kanchi Sankara Mutt, Jayendra Saraswathi and Vijayendra Saraswathi, along with 21 others in the case.
In July this year, the then Lt Governor of Puduchery, Virendra Kataria ordered filing of an appeal against the acquittal of the seers. The Puducherry government sought the Attorney General's opinion through the Union Home Ministry.
A Sankararaman, the manager of the Varadarajaperumal temple in Kancheepuram, Tamil Nadu, was allegedly murdered on September 3, 2004, in the temple premises.
Sankararaman had allegedly written several letters to publications claiming that the Kanchi mutt had deteriorated ever since Jayendra Saraswathi had taken over.
The Sankaracharya and pontiff Vijayendra were among six people charged with his murder. The then Jayalalithaa government arrested Jayendra Saraswathi on Diwali day in November 2004.
The trial was shifted from a Chengalpet court in Tamil Nadu to Puducherry by the Supreme Court in 2005, based on a plea by Jayendra Saraswathi, who alleged that the accused would not get a free and fair trial in Tamil Nadu.
During the trial, 189 witnesses were examined between 2009 and 2012, of which 83 turned hostile.