6 months ago
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The Kerala High Court-appointed peculiar probe squad (SIT) probing the pilferage of the gold-plated copper panels from the Sabarimala Ayyappa temple successful 2019 is reportedly weighing whether to bring retired and serving Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) officials indicted successful the sensational case, including high-profile governmental appointees, nether the ambit of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
Officials accidental that if so, the SIT volition apt record a study with the Inquiry Commissioner and Special Judge (Vigilance), Kollam, which besides has jurisdiction implicit Pathanamthitta district.
The SIT’s determination assumes governmental and ineligible value arsenic the high-profile probe edges person to higher-ups successful the TDB.
Officials accidental the SIT had sought the High Court’s anterior authorisation to invoke the Act to plug imaginable ineligible loopholes, specified arsenic the probable complexity of proving that the indicted TDB officials had a nonstop inculpatory relation successful the alleged embezzlement.
Officials accidental the SIT mightiness question to prosecute TDB officials by charging them with corrupt intent nether the Act for “wilfully miscategorising” the gilded panels covering the temple’s chromatic carvings and sculptures earlier they handed them implicit to Unnikrishnan Potti, the premier accused, for “refurbishment”.
The SIT has claimed successful its tribunal filings that the “official misrepresentation” of the gold-plated panels arsenic copper coverings was a deliberate determination to accord an undue pecuniary vantage to Mr. Potti and besides to supply him a ineligible shield against imaginable prosecution if and erstwhile the pilferage came to light.
The SIT’s expected determination to use the Act besides comes against the backdrop of its reported determination to question Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] person and erstwhile TDB president K. Padmakumar.
Mr Padmakumar was the TDB president erstwhile N. Vasu served arsenic Devasom Commissioner. Notably, the SIT had arrested and obtained judicial remand of Mr Vasu, besides a erstwhile TDB president.
The SIT lawsuit was that the miscategorisation of gilded panels connected temple records arsenic copper encasings laid the crushed for the “elaborate crime”.
In the tribunal filings, the SIT has said Mr Potti had chartered retired the encasings to affluent devotees and donors for backstage worship for sizeable backhanders.
It was besides investigating whether Mr Potti and his “accomplices” smelted the gilded panels for the golden oregon replicated the moulds successful a cheaper alloy to merchantability the originals to affluent collectors.
So far, the SIT has made 5 arrests, including Mr Potti and 4 TDB officials, some retired and serving, successful the case.
