SIT indicts Tantri Kandararu Rajeevaru for criminal complicity and conspiracy in Sabarimala gold theft case

The High Court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) has charged Sabarimala senior Tantri (chief priest) Kandararu Rajeevaru with criminal complicity and conspiracy in the “dishonest misappropriation” of the temple’s gold-plated religious artefacts in 2019. 

In the remand report filed late Friday, the SIT also indicted Mr. Rajeevaru for misappropriation of temple property, illicit enrichment, and abuse of power for gain under various provisions of the Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act, 1988.  Earlier, the SIT had recieved legal opinion that it could deem Mr. Rajeevaru, who draws an honorarium from the Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB), as a public servant. 

The SIT alleged that Mr. Rajeevaru had violated the temple manual by allowing the prime accused, Unnikrishnan Potti, who was brought to the temple as a helper in 2007, to dismantle the gilded moulds covering the temple’s stone carvings, doorway and sculptures for transport to a metal works factory, Smart Creations, at Ambathur in Chennai, purportedly for restoration. 

Moreover, the SIT accused Mr. Rajeevaru of “silently acquiescing to the common intention” of the accused to steal valuable temple property for illicit financial gain. It also told the court that Mr. Rajeevaru had not followed the prescribed rituals governing the granting or withholding of consent for the repair and transport of the temple’s religious artefacts. 

Reduced weight

The suspected crime came to light in October last year after a High Court-ordered internal inquiry by the TDB Vigilance found that the gold-plated copper panels returned by Mr. Potti to the temple in 2019 weighed significantly less and that the alloy’s gold content had declined drastically. 

Last month, the SIT arrested the factory owner on charges of separating the gold from the alloy using a chemical process, allegedly at Mr. Potti’s behest. The SIT also accused the factory owner of unlawfully appropriating a part of the gold residue as his share of the loot, while leaving the rest to Mr. Potti for private sale. The SIT also arrested a jeweller from Bellary, Karnataka, for buying the “stolen gold” from Mr. Potti. 

Forging property

Notably, the SIT also booked Mr. Rajeevaru for forging valuable property, indicating that it was investigating whether the accused had replicated the artefacts in a cheaper alloy and sold the originals, donated by industrialist Vijay Mallya in 1998, to wealthy collectors, a probability flagged by the High Court. 

The SIT also detailed Mr. Rajeevaru’s decades-long association with Mr. Potti and the private pujas he had conducted on the premises of wealthy devotees at the latter’s behest and possibly for sizeable backhanders. It also noted that Mr. Potti had dismantled the gilded moulds in the presence of Mr. Rajeevaru.