Chennai, Jan. 12: In a day of dramatic developments centring round the Kanchi seer?s case, the government today transferred the police chief and the home secretary and sought adjournment in another case against Jayendra Saraswati in view of the state?s plea in the Supreme Court to ?modify? his bail conditions.

The bank account of the Kanchi mutt has been seized, the seer?s counsel said late tonight.

Director-general of police I.K. Govind was transferred as chairman-cum-managing director of the Tamil Nadu Police Housing Corporation. He will be replaced by veteran state intelligence chief A.X. Alexander.

Barely two hours after signing the transfer papers, home secretary Sheela Rani Chunkath herself got the marching orders. Her post, next only to that of the chief secretary?s, has gone to Pavan Raina, who was the resident commissioner of Tamil Nadu House in New Delhi.

Chunkath will now handle the health and family welfare department.

Sources said the shuffle came after the Kanchi seer?s counsel yesterday produced a copy of Govind?s circular to all the police bosses, directing them not to arrest any accused when their anticipatory bail petition was pending in the high court. The police department was under Chunkath?s purview.

The seer?s lawyers had moved an anticipatory bail petition in the principal sessions court here in the third case of assault on priest Thirukoshtiyur Madhavan against the acharya.

At the hearing today, the prosecution sought an adjournment in the backdrop of the state government moving the Supreme Court to ?modify? the seer?s bail conditions and ?seeking to expunge certain portions? of the order. After his conditional release last evening, Jayendra Saraswati is staying at Kalavai, 45 km from Kancheepuram.

The seer?s counsel, Dinakaran, agreed to the adjournment till January 20 after the prosecution assured the court that the acharya would not be arrested in the third case till then.

In the Supreme Court, the state today sought an order directing the seer not to stay in the southern states ? Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh ? till completion of the trial in the Shankar Raman murder case as he wields considerable clout in the region. It also wanted that the seer should report to a police station daily and not talk to the media during the course of the investigation.

The Jayalalithaa government also wanted certain portions of the bail order criticising the investigation deleted.

The move has raised the BJP?s hackles, with general secretary Bangaru Dattatreya telling reporters here this evening that it showed the Jayalalithaa government ?is after the seer and a witch-hunt is going on in Tamil Nadu?.

The bail order had ?morally defeated? the Jayalalithaa regime as the apex court did not find the minimum evidence to continue to keep the seer in jail, he added. Now, the new demand that Jayendra Saraswati should leave south India showed that the government had no confidence in its intelligence and administrative machinery.

Accusing Jayalalithaa of trying to ?destroy the traditions of the Kanchi Mutt?, Dattatreya said a three-member BJP team, including himself, met governor S.S. Barnala today and expressed ?serious concern? about the latest developments at the mutt, including the arrest of junior pontiff Vijayendra Saraswati.

He described the government as dictatorial for not allowing BJP and VHP volunteers to stage a protest here and letting senior party leader Sushma Swaraj meet the junior acharya in Chennai central jail barely an hour before her evening flight back to Delhi.