‘Ghee for Sabarimala bought at higher prices’: Kerala High Court directs Vigilance probe

After examining a report from the temple vigilance and chief security officer, the court on Wednesday found serious irregularities in the Board’s decision to abandon an e-tender, and purchase ghee from Milma – state’s co-operative venture in the dairy sector – at a substantially higher price.

The court found that although the lowest bidder had quoted Rs 369 per litre and met the quality prescribed, the TDB approved the purchase of 1.65 lakh litres of ghee from Milma at a higher price of Rs 510 per litre. The Board had claimed that Milma ghee was of superior quality and would require less quantity for preparing Aravana (prasad). The Board took the decision, disregarding the objection of the Devaswom commissioner, the report noted.

The curious case of ‘missing’ ghee

The report also doubted whether the entire quantity of 1.61 lakh litres of ghee was actually supplied to the TDB, pointing to discrepancies in procurement, transportation, receipt and accounting records. The report said Milma had purchased 25 tonnes of ghee from another dairy after it received the order from TDB. Preliminary enquiry estimated that the Board could have saved about Rs 2.28 crore had it accepted the lowest bid.

The report said the board had taken a decision to purchase the Milma ghee based on reports by TDB executive officer Sabarimala Murari Babu, who was earlier arrested in the case pertaining to the alleged theft of gold from temple artefacts. While on bail, he died in June this year.

Third such scandal

This is the third Sabarimala scandal being probed by special investigation teams (SITs) following the intervention of the HC. An SIT formed by the court is already probing three cases pertaining to theft of gold from temple artefacts during 2019 and 2023. Prasanth and Ajikumar are already facing probe in one of the cases.

In January, the HC had also ordered a vigilance probe into misappropriation of funds by TDB employees in relation to the sale of “adiya sishtam ghee” – A sacred offering sold to devotees. Filled into packets of 100 millilitre each and sold to the devotees at Rs 100 per piece, its sale proceeds constitute a substantial chunk of TDB revenue with lakhs of units prepared and sold over the counter at the temple.