Date:08/04/2005 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2005/04/08/stories/2005040803691301.htm

National

Vijayan's nephew barred from immersing ashes

By Our Legal Correspondent

NEW DELHI, APRIL 7. A controversy has ensued over late cartoonist O.V. Vijayan's ashes. The Delhi High Court, by an interim order, has directed S.G. Ravishankar, nephew of the cartoonist, to preserve the ashes and not to immerse them in the Ganga till April 14.

Justice B.N. Chaturvedi passed the order on Wednesday on a suit filed by Vijayan's wife, Teresa Vijayan, and son, Madhu Vijayan and seeking a direction to Mr. Ravishankar to hand over the ashes to enable them to perform the last rituals.

Traumatised

The plaintiffs stated that Vijayan died in Hyderabad on March 30 and his cremation took place in his native village in Kerala the next day with full state honours. Mr. Madhu (first plaintiff) said he could not accompany his father's body to Kerala as he was traumatised over the death and only his mother accompanied the body.

The suit alleged that the defendant Mr. Ravishankar, who cremated the body, was refusing to hand over the ashes simply to draw mileage out of it since late Vijayan was a person of immense recognition and acclaim having been a reputed writer and political cartoonist. In these circumstances, the plaintiffs sought a direction to the defendant to hand over the ashes and to restrain him from immersing them.

The judge while restraining Mr. Ravishankar from immersing the ashes in the Ganga issued notice to him for his response and posted the case for further hearing on April 14.

Talking to The Hindu , the defendant Mr. Ravishankar said: "The public bickering over Vijayan's ashes is really painful. What was a private family affair is being converted into a public issue. It is a well-known and well-documented fact that Mr. Madhu did not come to Kerala either to cremate the body of his father, or to do the last rites. I had tried to contact him on the phone several times on March 30 but he did not take my calls."