4 months ago
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The Kerala High Court connected Tuesday cited the request for a broad Vigilance probe to ascertain the grade of the alleged misappropriation of funds by Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) employees astatine the Sabarimala Sannidhanam with respect to the merchantability of ‘Adiya Sishtam Ghee.’
A Bench of Justice V. Raja Vijayaraghavan and Justice K.V. Jayakumar went connected to implead the Director, Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau, arsenic an further responsive successful the suo motu case.
It was reported earlier this period that implicit 16,000 packets of the ghee valued astatine ₹16 lakh, handed implicit to organisation counters astatine the elevation temple, were missing.
The tribunal observed that the magnitude of abbreviated remittance, wrong a constricted model of time, was alarming and cannot beryllium brushed speech arsenic an accounting lapse. “In particular, erstwhile the serviceman successful complaint of the antagonistic is relieved and different idiosyncratic assumes charge, banal is not taken and the closing equilibrium is not recorded successful accordance with the prescribed procedure. It creates an situation conducive to specified diversion and misappropriation of funds.”
The facts disclosed prima facie marque retired a wide lawsuit of transgression misappropriation, falsification of accounts/records and different cognisable offences nether the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, and offences nether the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.
There are besides superior allegations against 1 Sunil Kumar Potty, who failed to contented receipts for the merchantability of ghee to devotees. It had been revealed that ₹68,200 received from income was not remitted to the board, and that lone aft directives were issued it was remitted by the said employee.
If the siphoning of amounts for a abbreviated play of conscionable nether 2 months, confined lone to the merchantability of “Adiya Sishtam Ghee” is to the tune of ₹35 lakh since the opening of the Mandalam-Makaravilakku season, it is hard to adjacent ideate the magnitude of misappropriation that whitethorn person occurred implicit a longer period, and crossed different gross streams, the tribunal said.
