The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Friday demanded that all cases against Shankaracharya Jayendra Saraswathi be moved outside Tamil Nadu for justice to be done, but clarified that it would not approach the courts for such a direction.

"Everyone wants justice to be done and it can only happen if the cases are transferred outside that state," BJP president L.K. Advani told reporters on the last day of the party's three-day leadership conclave in this Jharkhand capital.

"We have been advised not to go to the Supreme Court at this juncture," he said, adding that the arrest of the Kanchi pontiff had caused concern among millions of Indians.

Commenting on the BJP's reservations about shifting cases related to the 2002 sectarian violence in Gujarat to Maharashtra, the BJP leader said the party would not have raised the demand to move the Shankaracharya's cases if there had not been a precedent.

"As far as I remember, the precedent of shifting cases from one state to another was first set in Tamil Nadu itself," he said, referring to the transfer of corruption cases against Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalitha to a Karnataka court.

He disagreed with the suggestion that championing different causes meant hopping from one issue to another - a reference to a question on the party abandoning its earlier demand for removing "tainted" ministers from the government and taking up the Shankaracharya's case now.

"The government was arming the opposition parties with one issue after another," Advani said.

The Kanchi seer was arrested on Nov 11 for his alleged links to the September murder of a former official of the mutt, A. Sankararaman.

--Indo-Asian News Service