SIT inches closer to fixing legal liability for chartering Sabarimala artefacts for private worship

The High Court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the misappropriation of Sabarimala Ayyappa temple artefacts is reportedly inching closer to fixing legal accountability for chartering the gold-plated copper panels to wealthy worshippers for private veneration at their homes and business premises.

Social media videos showing the main suspect Unnikrishnan Potti offerring puja to the gilded panels covering the doorway of the sanctum sanctorum on the private premises of celebrities, notably actor Jayaram, in 2019 had gone viral after the Vigilance wing of the Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB), somewhat belatedly, flagged the issue once the controversial case erupted in the public domain in October 2025. 

Likewise, the TDB Vigilance also yielded evidence, including video footage of Mr. Potti offering puja to the gold-plated copper moulds encasing the Dwarapalaka figurines that flank the entrance to the sanctum sanctorum at the homes of his wealthy patrons in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Chennai. 

Potti’s offer

Mr. Potti had come into possession of the gilded panels, donated by industrialist Vijay Mallya in 1998, after the TDB accepted his ‘dubious’ offer in 2019 to restore them for free. 

Given the High Court’s order forbidding the public disclosure of information concerning the case, officials were noncommittal on whether the SIT would serve notices to Mr. Jayaram and others. 

However, the officials noted that the High Court had frowned on the use of the TDB-owned artefacts, which they said fall within the broad category of government property, for personal gratification, and that such misuse entailed substantial legal jeopardy.

Hence, they said the SIT needed to summon those connected with the offence for questioning to determine the facts. With the court’s concurrence, the SIT could take a call on naming them as witnesses or enablers.

Doubts on replication

Meanwhile, the SIT is also reportedly investigating the possibility, flagged by the High Court, that the suspects, with the tacit connivance of their alleged enablers in the TDB, had replicated the panels to sell the originals to wealthy collectors, while returning the replicas as originals to the temple after “restoration” at the metal works factory in Chennai. 

The SIT had also told the court that TDB officials had wilfully miscategorised the gilded panels as copper to facilitate the crime and shield the suspects from potential legal peril.

Officials said the SIT was also examining documents, including financial records confiscated from the house of Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] leader and former TDB president A. Padmakumar, who was arrested and remanded in judicial custody last Thursday. So far, the SIT has arrested six persons in the case, including the former Devaswom Commissioner, N. Vasu.