Written by: Express News Service
2 min readNew DelhiSep 23, 2011 01:13 AM IST
First published on: Sep 23, 2011 at 01:13 AM IST
The Supreme Court on Thursday ordered that vault B of the Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple in Thiruvananthapuram wouldnt be opened till the substantial work regarding documentation and preservation of assets unearthed from other kalaras vaults of the shrine is completed.
Pronouncing its order,a Bench headed by Justice R V Raveendran also turned down the plea of an expert committee to hand over the security of the temple to central paramilitary forces and ordered the state government to provide foolproof cover to the temple to protect its assets,which are estimated to be over Rs 1.50 lakh crore.
A five-member committee of experts headed by Director General of National Museum C V Ananda Bose had been constituted by the court on July 21 to supervise the unearthing and preservation of assets of the temple. Another committee comprising former Kerala High Court Judge M N Krishnan,the erstwhile Prince of Travancore,Marthanda Varma,and a government representative of the rank of Secretary had also been set up to oversee the work of unearthing of the temples assets.
On September 16,the Bench had reserved its orders on a plea for security of the temple and opening of vault B.
In its order,it directed the management of the temple to pay Rs 25 lakh per year for preservation of assets and security of the temple,with the state government shelling out the rest of the amount needed for the purpose.
The court said that no tender should be floated for giving contract to private players for preservation work of the assets and said that it would be done by the Kerala State Electronics Development Corporation Limited.
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