The High Court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the ‘misappropriation’ of gold-plated copper coverings enveloping the stone carvings and sculptures at the Sabarimala Ayyappa temple appeared to expand rapidly to other States on Sunday.
Officials said an SIT plainclothes squad is in Chennai to interview the factory management, who Unnikrishnan Potti, the prime accused in the case, had contracted to restore the decades-old gilded temple panels to their original sheen. They said the SIT might probe Mr. Potti’s antecedents in Bengaluru and Hyderabad.
Notably, Mr. Potti made himself the target of the investigation after he revealed in September that two gold-copper coverings he had ‘donated’ to the temple in 2019 were ‘missing’.
Mr. Potti had worked in the temple as an assistant to a Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB)-appointed priest in the early 2010s and later gained employment at the Ayyappa temple at Jalahalli in Bengaluru.
The startling ‘disclosure’ came in the run-up to the TDB-sponsored Global Ayyappa Sangamam, wrong-footing the ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF) government and providing Opposition parties with ammunition to scandalise the organisers.
However, the controversy took a sharp turn when the Vigilance recovered the panels from the house of Mr. Potti’s sister in Thiruvananthapuram days later, and consequently, laid the ground for the ongoing High Court-monitored SIT probe.
Motives questioned
In a recent report to the High Court, the TDB’s internal Vigilance raised cautionary red flags about Mr. Potti’s motives for accepting the TDB’s restoration contract and his ‘questionable insider role in the temple’s affairs’.
The unit alleged that Mr. Potti had gradually gained credibility within the temple orthodoxy by channelling substantial contributions from wealthy Ayyappa devotees to make sizeable offerings at the temple, including underwriting expensive pujas and extensive feasts, and ‘facilitating’ VIP darshans.
The SIT is reportedly poised to question one Kalpesh, who had received the gold-inlaid overlays from the temple on Mr. Potti’s behest, for restoration.
Under probe ambit
The ‘discrepancy’ in the weight of the panels returned to the temple after restoration, the possibility of duplication of the artefacts while in Mr. Potti’s ‘protracted’ custody, the TDB’s ‘misleading’ grading of the gilded coverings as made of pure copper and the worship of the temple artefacts in the homes of wealthy devotees in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Chennai were under the SIT probe.
The SIT had brought at least nine TDB officials, including two former presidents and Devaswom Commissioners, both of whom are political appointees of the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government, under its rapidly evolving probe, which remains strictly under wraps as per the High Court’s order. The SIT has indicted the suspects for cheating, confidence, trickery, conspiracy and theft.
Published – October 12, 2025 08:43 pm IST
