‘Symptomatic of deeper systemic deficiencies…’: Kerala HC asks SIT to see if Sabarimala gold ‘scam’ falls under Corruption Act

While the SIT’s two criminal cases pertain to the alleged missing gold from temple artefacts in 2019, the court said on Wednesday that the TDB in 2025 also initiated steps to fabricate a false sense of emergency to hand over the artefacts to self-styled sponsor Unnikrishnan Potty for gold covering.

The court noted that the TDB’s decision in September this year to hand over repair works of temple artefacts and gold plating of the Dwarapalaka idols was not entered in the board’s minutes book. “This omission, in our considered view, is a matter of the utmost seriousness and warrants close scrutiny.”

The court said those in positions of authority were apprehensive that compliance with statutory and judicial mandates would expose the irregularities committed in 2019.

“This inference assumes even greater significance in light of the discrepancy in weight between the Dwarapalakas, the set returned in 2019 being over 4 kilograms lighter than when originally removed. If, as the records suggest, an entirely different set of Dwarapalakas was substituted under the guise of repair, it would amount not merely to a grave breach of fiduciary and statutory obligations, but to an act of criminal misappropriation of sacred temple property of profound cultural, artistic, and spiritual value,” the court said.

It further said: “Such a course of conduct could not have been accomplished without the active connivance, knowledge, or deliberate inaction of officials of the Board”.

The court allowed the SIT to conduct a scientific investigation to determine the actual loss of gold in 2019.