The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Wednesday dismissed the anticipatory bail petition filed by suspended Sub-Registrar Justin Manikandan Subramanian, one of the accused in the Palani math land sale case.

Justice K. Rajasekar cancelled the interim bail granted to him, and also dismissed the anticipatory bail petition filed by another accused, Jeyaprakash.

The court said the case under investigation by the CB-CID revealed that accused Anwardeen was actively involved in fabrication of records and was taking several steps to grab the property from 1998 onwards.

Anwardeen who had been arrested in the case disclosed various facts regarding the manner in which the sale deed came to be registered and the various acts done by the accused to force the Registration Department to conclude the registration.

It is said that Jeyaprakash, an associate of Anwardeen, was directed to influence the then Sub Registrar Balasundar. Since Balasundar did not accept their illegal acts, they mounted pressure on him, and obtained a court order to register the sale deed.

Due to the pressure mounted on him, Mr. Balasundar went on leave, after completing the initial registration process. He made an entry in the minutes book that the registration of the document had been objected to by the temple and the temple had filed a writ appeal.

The State submitted that there was concentrated telephonic communication between the petitioners, Sub-Registrar Justin Manikandan Subramanian, who registered the document, and document writer Jeyaprakash before and during the registration of the document.

Without considering the minutes and remarks recorded by the then Sub-Registrar, Justin Manikandan Subramanian completed the registration process by assigning the document number, which clearly revealed that he had not acted bonafidely, and acted intentionally to benefit the other accused.

During the course of the arguments, Jeyaprakash submitted that he was not a document writer.

The court said granting anticipatory bail to the petitioners at this stage would hamper the investigation. Earlier, the court dismissed the anticipatory bail petition of one of the accused, K. Vellathurai.

The State submitted a status report on the progress made in the investigation in the case to a Division Bench of Justices C.V. Karthikeyan and R. Sakthivel. The court posted petitions seeking a CBI probe for hearing to August 12.

Meanwhile, Judicial Magistrate I, Dindigul, S. Packiaraj, granted the CB-CID till Friday the custody of the four arrested accused — D. Murugadass, who sold the land; K. Vellathurai and D. Sethupathi, both buyers of the land; and S. Anwardeen, who reportedly facilitated the deal.

Published - August 05, 2026 10:03 pm IST