The Supreme Court of India has dismissed the petition of former Devaswom Board member KP Shankar Das regarding alleged theft and manipulation of Sabarimala Temple gold plates, upholding adverse Kerala High Court remarks and refusing relief to the petitioner.
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court of India has dismissed a petition by former Devaswom Board member KP Shankar Das concerning the theft and manipulation of gold plates from the Sabarimala Ayyappa Temple in Kerala.
A Bench comprising Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Satish Chandra Sharma declined to annul the negative remarks made against Shankar Das by the Kerala High Court.
In rejecting the petition, the Bench stated,
“you have not even spared God,”
The court said that at least the temple and its deity should have been left untouched.
This case involves allegations of misappropriation and theft of gold items, where a Special Investigation Team (SIT), appointed by the Kerala High Court, is investigating the disappearance of gold-plated copper plates and other temple artifacts that were sent for electroplating and repair but returned with significantly reduced gold content.
Investigators suspect that gold was illegally siphoned and sold, primarily implicating Unnikrishnan Potty, who allegedly diverted temple gold for personal gain.
Earlier, in October, the Kerala High Court had instructed the SIT, which is investigating the Sabarimala “missing gold” controversy, to uncover the broader conspiracy related to the alleged misappropriation of sacred temple treasures.
The High Court emphasized that senior officials of the Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) could not evade accountability by blaming their subordinates.
The High Court stated,
“The higher officials of the board cannot absolve themselves of responsibility or shift the blame onto subordinate officers, for each of them bore a collective duty to ensure that the sacred valuables of the deity were neither pilfered nor wasted.”
The Court noted that while the idols were originally gold-plated in 1999 and photographic evidence from 2013 confirmed the full gold cladding, the documentation remained severely lacking.
Tensions escalated when a Vigilance raid on September 27, 2025, at the residence of Mini, the sister of seventh respondent Unnikrishnan Potty, discovered gold-plated peedams hidden in a sealed cover.
The High Court described the concealment as,
“sensational and shocking,” criticizing the TDB for entrusting valuable temple assets to a private entity with “questionable antecedents.”
The court highlighted Shankar Das’s responsibility as a board member regarding the alleged gold theft at the Sabarimala Ayyappa Temple.
It also noted that, despite the gravity of the offense, the High Court had granted some reliefs to Shankar Das considering his health and advanced age, rather than on the case’s merits.
The High Court previously remarked that Shankar Das and K Vijayakumar could not evade criminal conspiracy charges associated with the alleged theft and manipulation of the gold plates.
Shankar Das had appealed to the Supreme Court to remove five paragraphs from the High Court order that contained critical comments about him, but this request was denied.