6 months ago
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The Kerala High Court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) investigating the misappropriation of gold-plated copper casings covering the sculptures and chromatic carvings astatine the Sabarimala Ayyappa temple arrested erstwhile Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) president and Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] person A. Padmakumar connected Thursday.
The apprehension came aft hours of questioning astatine the State Police Crime Branch Headquarters here. The SIT has named Mr. Padmakumar arsenic the eighth accused successful the case. The SIT subjected Mr. Padmakumar to a aesculapian introspection astatine General Hospital present and aboriginal produced him earlier a magistrate successful Kollam.
The SIT had earlier arrested erstwhile TDB commissioner and aboriginal TDB president N. Vasu, erstwhile administrative serviceman Murari Babu, erstwhile enforcement serviceman D. Sudheesh Kumar, and ex-Thiruvabharanam Commissioner K.S. Baiju successful the case.
Financial benefit
Officials said the SIT has reportedly indicted Mr. Padmakumar chiefly for “bequeathing” an undue fiscal payment to the premier accused, Unnikrishnan Potti, successful 2019, by presiding implicit the “wilful miscategorisation” of the gilded panels arsenic made of axenic copper earlier entrusting them to the idiosyncratic custody of the main suspect, ostensibly for restoring them to their archetypal aureate shine.
The SIT lawsuit was that the “false accounting” of the alloy’s metallic properties provided the suspects with a shield against imaginable ineligible jeopardy and opened the doorway for the pilferage.
Officials said they were unsure whether the SIT has assigned Mr. Padmakumar a nonstop inculpatory oregon conspiratorial relation successful the consequent “smelting” of the panels for gold, their imaginable replication, and the chartering of the originals to affluent devotees for backstage worship successful instrumentality for sizeable backhanders.
However, they pointed retired that the alleged culpability could autumn wrong the scope of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
They said that successful erstwhile arrests, the SIT had indicted the suspects for theft, transgression misappropriation, breach of trust, and falsification of records, and that it mightiness bring the aforesaid incriminating provisions to carnivore connected Mr. Padmakumar.
Former TDB president A. Padmakumar being taken to General Hospital for a aesculapian checkup pursuing his apprehension by SIT successful Sabarimala temple golden theft lawsuit successful Thiruvananthapuram connected Thursday. | Photo Credit: JAYAMOHAN A.
Flouting norms
In tribunal filings, the SIT had stated that the TDB officials had brazenly infringed connected the temple manual by entrusting the temple artefacts to a backstage idiosyncratic with a “dubious” background. Moreover, it argued that the alleged nonaccomplishment to measurement the panels and trial their metallurgical creation earlier handing them implicit to Mr. Potti revealed an volition to perpetrate wrongdoing.
The case’s root lies successful the TDB’s “questiontable” determination successful 2019 to judge Mr. Potti’s connection to restore, escaped of charge, the golden panels donated by liquor baron Vijay Mallya successful 1998. Mr. Potti, who had worked arsenic an adjutant to a inferior clergyman astatine the temple from 2004 to 2008, had built a web of affluent devotees, including celebrities, and aboriginal gained power wrong the committee and the temple’s priestly orthodoxy.
This year, the TDB’s interior audit helping told the High Court that the panels returned to the temple by Mr. Potti successful 2019 had a diminished golden contented and weighed considerably little than the originals.
Moreover, the portion quoted Mr. Potti’s missive to the TDB successful 2019, seeking support to usage the “leftover gold” from the restoration process for foundation arsenic impervious of criminality.
Officials said Mr. Padmakumar’s alleged proximity to Mr. Potti implicit the years, including the allocation of VIP rooms successful Sabarimala, brought him nether the SIT’s scanner.
