Vigilance Wing Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) restored two metal plaques covered with a copper gold leaf, which disappeared from the Sabarimal temple in 2019.
In particular, the Vigilance unit confiscated the alloy of gold and lacquered tablets with religious images from the House of the related Unnikrishhnan Potti, a devotion, who sponsored artifacts.
President TDB Psanth told Hindu in Kottayam that “the Council was justified and the detection of Devasom’s criticism.” The politically turbulent controversy broke out in the start before the global Ayyapp Sangamama sponsored TDB, after Mr. Potti came to live television and claimed that his offer had disappeared since 2019.
He claimed to have paid for three monarchs of gold to decorate the base of the statue of the “Dwarapalaka”, which lemule entrance to Sanctum Sanctorum temple Ayyapp.
HC orders a probe
As a result, the High Court in Kerala ordered the wing of the Vigilance TDB to explore the matter. Vigilance TDB has prepared a list of valuable objects stored in the fortified strong room of the temple. The Vigilance unit, which was hardly pressed for the location of gold lacquered plaques, has expanded its investigation.
The Unit Vigilance scanned Temple Records dating back to 2019. The agency concluded that TDB had returned the gold covered with plaques donated by a sponsor after they found that they were too small to cover the stands of stone idols.
Subsequently, the wing of the vigilance inspected the residence of the sponsor and its relatives and employees, which led to the recovery of items from the house of his close relative in Pulimath in Kilimanoor on Saturday, on the outskirts of Thiruvananthapuram.
According to TDB sources, the sponsor accepted the return of the plaques and entrusted them with staff to store. They argued that the sponsor later transferred objects to the house of their relative, maybe avoid a legal threat.
Message in HC today
The case of missing plaque caused a political storm, which led the opposition united democratic front (UDF) to the boycott of the legislative assembly during the last session.
Bharatiya Janata (BJP) and Sangh Parivar also tried to bear the government responsible for the missing artifacts. TDB would report on Monday to the Supreme Court and seek instructions to continue in this case.
Published – 28 September 2025 17:28
