Consultant appointed to ready software to ensure proper auditing of funds, TDB tells HC

The Travancore Devaswom Board submitted before the Kerala High Court on Friday that a public sector unit had been appointed as consultant for readying software to ensure proper auditing of funds.

Kerala State Information Technology Infrastructure Ltd has been given the task of preparing a request for proposal (RFP) in this regard, the board said.

The court directed the board to verify whether the unit has the necessary expertise. The development comes three days after the court reminded it was the board’s bounden duty to ensure that a comprehensive and tamper-proof software system for all institutions governed by the board be put in place at the earliest, so that all revenue and expenditure are captured, monitored, and reconciled on a day-to-day basis.

“These are no longer matters of administrative discretion, but statutory obligations which the board is legally and morally bound to discharge. We had also reminded the board that any continued failure to act can only lead to the inference that the higher echelons of the board are either unwilling or complicit in permitting such systemic lapses to continue,” the court said on Tuesday.

The court was hearing a plea on the alleged irregularities in the sale of “Adiya Sishtam Ghee” at the Sabarimala Sannidhanam.