Sabarimala gold scam: TDB wants SIT to probe transactions from 1998

The Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) has said it will move the High Court to broaden the scope of the ongoing special investigation team (SIT) inquiry into the alleged misappropriation of gold-inlaid copper moulds covering the Sabarimala Ayyappa temple’s stone carvings and sculptures in 2019. 

After chairing a top-level meeting here on Tuesday, TDB president P.S. Prasanth said the board wanted the SIT to examine temple transactions from 1998, the year industrialist Vijay Mallya had donated the gold-plated coverings to the temple. 

Mr. Prasanth also announced the suspension of Sunil Kumar, a TDB employee, whom the SIT had named as an accused in the FIR (filed in a magistrate’s court in Ranni). Earlier, the TDB had suspended a temple administrator, Murari Babu. 

Mr. Prasanth said the SIT had named seven retired TDB officials as suspects. “The TDB has set a deadline of ten days for them to submit an explanation to the board under the provisions of the Kerala Service Rules. The board is empowered to withdraw or suspend their pensions and other benefits if the court convicts them. It can also take temporary penal action,” he said. 

Mr. Prasanth slammed Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan for allegedly politicising the controversy.  He requested the Opposition to hold its fire till the SIT  submited a report to the High Court in “six weeks.”

He said if the Opposition mistrusted the High Court-monitored SIT inquiry, it should state so to the court, instead of “laying down a smokescreen of lies” when the TDB prepared to host President Droupadi Murmu and lakhs of Ayyappa devotees during the Mandala-Makaravilakku pilgrimage season. 

Meanwhile, the SIT’s rapidly expanding probe reportedly reached Hyderabad, amid reports that the temple artefacts were kept in the house of a wealthy collector for private worship en route to a factory in Chennai for restoration in 2019.

The TDB’s Vigilance wing had reported to the High Court that the artefacts had remained in the custody of the prime suspect, Unnikrishnan Potti, for 39 days before they were “restored and returned to the temple”, raising the possibility of replication of the mould and sale of the original castings to wealthy collectors for private worship.