Justice K V Jayakumar Flags Devaswom Hand in Sabarimala Gold Vanish

High Court Commissioner Charges Devaswom Hand in Misses Gold.

A highly alarming report to the Kerala High Court has given grave concerns about how the Sabarimala temple was run. Major irregularities in the treasury of the temple have been raised by Justice K V Jayakumar who sits as the Sabarimala Special Commissioner. According to his report, much gold and silver have disappeared or have not been duly accounted of, which was given by millions of devotees.

Justice Jayakumar is one of the officials appointed to the High Court. His will is to become the eyes and ears of the court and to monitor the administration of the temple and amenities to the pilgrims. His most recent report however transcends logistics and gets to the very core of the financial integrity of the temple. It indicates a system malfunction in the manner in which the most valuable offerings are getting safeguarded.

The results are presented to the Devaswom Bench of the High Court that regulates the temple affairs. The report is harsh, and it would be implied that the loss of these valuables is not an accident or a poor bookkeeping issue. Rather, Justice Jayakumar accuses this only to be possible through the aid or carelessness of people who were running the temple.

This revelation has been a shock to the masses and it has put the body managing the temple under the severe strain. The report is a form of warning to the court that the wealth that is presented in good faith by the devotees is not safe. The court is currently supposed to deliver decisive actions to this grave violation of trust.

Travancore Devaswom Board Undergoes Grievous Accusations.

The Special Commissioner report very directly indicates the Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB). According to the findings of justice Jayakumar, the TDB failed to guard the assets of the temple grossly.

The report is written well, indicating the connivance of Devaswom officials. The connotation of this word means that there might be officials who were either directly engaged in this or they had chosen to ignore it and these precious items are stolen. That is far graver an accusation than mere mismanagement or inefficiency.

The primary responsibility of the TDB is to serve as the custodian of the property of the temple. This involves the Bhandaram or the treasury where all cash, gold and silver offerings are counted and kept. According to the report by Special Commissioner, this essential responsibility has been betrayed and this has resulted in loss of valuables worth colossal sum of money.

This is not the first occasion when the financial management of the TDB was questioned. Nevertheless, a first-person complaint of official connivance on the part of a court-appointed commissioner has great legal force. This has placed the TDB in a challenging situation of being forced to defend its procedures and officials with regards to these very specific and damaging statements.

The Enigma of the Lost Gold Pot.

The case of a large gold pot or swarna kumbham is one of the most precise and threatening examples mentioned in the report. It is an individual offering, which is made by one of the worshippers and is said to be untraceable. The priests of the temple received it but apparently it disappeared before it could be officially registered in the permanent inventory of the temple.

The Sabarimala supposedly maintains a master list known as the Malswaram register where all the valuable offerings are to be recorded. This register is the official book of the whole treasury of the temple. According to the report of Justice Jayakumar, chaos is present in this register. It has some significant discrepancies between what has been given and what is actually contained in the book.

The 1 gold pot is not the only problem. The report provides an indication of a long term and systemic problem where many gold and silver objects are not being registered. This involves the offerings at the sanctum sanctorum which is the most sacred part of the temple. This is an indication of a serious lapse in security and accountability.

These missing items may have a value that is enormous and may be in terms of many crores of rupees and they have been built over a number of years. The report sets the alarm of many worshipers who are deeply worried that the system that was put in place to safeguard their offerings is simply flawed. It demonstrates that the most precious things are the weakest.

A System with a Lack of Transparency and Audit.

The report of Special Commissioner is a strong commentary on the whole process of audit at Sabarimala. The existing method of counting, weighing, and recording of the offerings is old-fashioned and not even moderately transparent. The counting is done in the Bhandaram which has been identified to require serious and vital reforms in order to eliminate theft.

The manual systems that are still running cannot possibly cope with the enormous amounts of wealth that are pouring into the temple. The suggestion in the report is that this feeble system that depends on a small number of officials is exploitable. It demands a total and immediate revamping of treasury administration, beginning with the time that an offering is received by a devotee.

This problem has been mentioned earlier. Several years back, an external audit was carried out by the former Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), Vinod Rai of India. Some of those failures in management of inventory and accounting of temples being operated by the TDB were highlighted in that audit as well. It seems that the TDB never actually made the major reforms, which were proposed.

This unaddressed failure is a wake-up call of the new report by Justice Jayakumar. It makes it evident that the resistance of the TDB to adopt modern, transparent, and technology-driven auditing systems is the source of the issue. In the absence of such a system, the wealth of the temple would be at a high risk due to corruption within the temple.

Strict action is likely to be ordered by High Court.

The shocking report, by the Special Commissioner in the Kerala High Court, has been received and discussed in the Kerala High Court, Devaswom Bench. The findings have been taken seriously by the court and it is likely to take strong action. The initial step will be to insist on an official and elaborate explanation by Travancore Devaswom Board.