The Kollam Vigilance Court on Wednesday rejected the bail application of former Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) President and CPM leader A Padmakumar in the Sabarimala temple gold heist case, observing that he could not absolve himself of responsibility for the alleged act.
The court denied Padmakumar bail in the case related to the alleged theft of gold from the dwarapalaka idols at the Sabarimala temple. His bail plea in the earlier ‘door frame plates’ case had already been dismissed by both the Vigilance Court and the High Court.
In his bail plea, Padmakumar argued that the entire Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) bore collective responsibility for the decision to hand over the gold sheets to the prime accused, Unnikrishnan Potty.
However, the court observed that Padmakumar, as the board president at the relevant time, could not absolve himself of responsibility for the alleged act.
Meanwhile, the Special Investigation Team (SIT), which is probing the cases, informed the Kerala High Court on Tuesday that the theft of gold from Sabarimala is part of a larger conspiracy and an organised crime committed by the accused persons.
The SIT also informed the Kerala High Court that former CPM MLA Padmakumar, who was the TDB president, committed grave official misconduct by deliberately making false entries in official correspondence, which ultimately led to the misappropriation of gold, thereby causing irreparable unlawful financial loss and damage to the Board’s reputation.
The SIT, in its report to the High Court, said the accused had a wider plan to dismantle other gold-clad items of the temple’s sreekovil (sanctum sanctorum) and misappropriate the gold.
The report further stated that despite having clear knowledge that the plates were gold-clad in 1998, none of the TDB officials inquired about the gold that was stripped from the plates at Smart Creations.”By not effectively supervising the works at Smart Creations, by failing to record the weights of the gold-plated door frame plates, connected plates, and dwarapalaka plates and pillar plates on reinstallation, and by not making prompt entries in the relevant registers, the devaswom officials committed grave official malpractice, which led to the commission of misappropriation,” the report said.
The acts and omissions on the part of the TDB officials are tantamount to official misconduct, thereby abetting and aiding Unnikrishnan Potty and others to misappropriate the gold, the SIT said in its report.