As much as 266 kg gold is missing from the famed Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple, said former chief government auditor Vinod Rai in his audit report that he submitted to the apex court on Friday.
According to media reports,of the 893 kg gold that was given out for various works, only 627 kg has been returned to the temple.
Rai was asked by the Supreme Court last year to conduct an audit of the temple's books and accounts.
A division bench of Justice R.M. Lodha and Justice A.K. Patnaik last April in its interim order had asked Rai to undertake the audit of the temple accounts and properties for the past quarter of a century. This directive came on the recommendations of amicus curiae Gopal Subramaniam, who had sought overhauling of the functioning of the temple.
Apart from asking Rai to audit the accounts of the temple, the apex court also directed the formation of a new five-member committee comprising of a judge from the capital city, the temple tantri, chief nambi of the Sri Padmanabhaswamy temple and two more members, of which one will be appointed in consultation with the state government and one would be the choice of the judge.
It was in July 2011 that an apex court committee stumbled upon six vaults in the temple and with just vault B left to be opened, the treasure that has been found in the other five vaults have been estimated to be valued more than Rs.100,000 crore.
Since then, armed security guards besides state of the art security equipment has been deployed for the safe upkeep of this treasure.
Reacting to the new developments, Communist Party of India-Marxist legislator V.Sivankutty said that a few years back all hell broke loose when V.S.Achuthanandan said that things are not going the way it should go in the temple as far as the priceless treasures upkeep are concerned and blamed the Travancore royal family.
"Look, what Rai has come out with in his report. There are some views from some quarters that the issues of this temple should be hushed up. Now with this report, responsibilities should be fixed and those people who have caused this should be brought to light," he said.
The erstwhile Travancore Royal Family with its headquarters in the capital city is however yet to react on Rai's report.
Mr. Rai’s report follows a Supreme Court order on April 24, 2014 to conduct a special audit of the temple and its properties “as early as may be possible”.
He points to how the B Kallara was opened twice in 1990 and fives times in 2002. “Silver ingots were taken out and gold vessels were deposited and subsequently taken out,” the report said.
The audit was prompted by an exhaustive but damaging amicus report filed by senior lawyer Gopal Subramanium — an outcome of a 35-day stay on the temple premises — that indicated that gold and silver jewellery offered by devotees to the Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple were not accounted for by the temple administration.
Graft alleged
The report had complained of corruption, filth, and disregard of ethics in the temple’s administration.
Alarmed by the report, the court had invited Mr. Rai as the Special Audit Authority on Mr. Subramanium's suggestion.
In what seems to be a sequel of the amicus’ findings, Mr. Rai said: “preliminary audit findings point towards deficiencies and inadequacies in maintenance of records. There is also incomplete information provided in the records for the weight and purity of the gold and silver items.
Auction process
The tendering and auction process needs streamlining. The register of temple assets is not also up-to-date”.
Mr. Rai said, “prima facie, there is lack of financial control of the custody and use of precious articles”.
He said over 72 audit notes have been sent to the temple management on the discrepancies and deficiencies, but most of them have not been replied to.
Comprehensive audit
The former CAG proposes to conduct a complete audit of records of the past 15 years in the first phase, and then audit the records of the preceding 10 years in the second round.
Mr. Rai said there is no credible accounting procedures in the temple administration.
He said the long-term objective of this Special Audit is to draw up a “comprehensive and appropriate system of accounting drawing on lessons from the deficiencies of the prevailing system”.
Belying the perception that its support base was limited to the lower class, Aam Aadmi Party today registered a hefty victory, winning 67 seats in the Delhi Assembly and making inroads into the upper class vote, which has traditionally gone with BJP.
While BJP, which had won 31 seats in the last Assembly elections, managed only three seats — Mustafabad, Vishwas Nagar and Rohini — Congress returned a zero in Delhi.
New Delhi, RK Puram, Greater Kailash, Malviya Nagar — considered to be among the posh localities of Delhi, are among the constituencies where AAP registered a thumping victory.
AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal, who bagged 57,213 votes, won the prestigious New Delhi seat by trouncing his BJP rival Nupur Sharma by 31,583 votes.
Manish Sisodia, Somnath Bharti, Gopal Rai, Rakhi Birla, Saurabh Bhardwaj and all other prominent AAP leaders emerged victorious.
Sisodia handed a defeat to former AAP member Vinod Kumar Binny, who was this time fighting on a BJP ticket, by 28,761 votes in the Patparganj seat in east Delhi while Bharti won the Malviya Nagar seat by 15,897 votes, defeating BJP candidate Nandini Sharma.Rai and Birla also tasted victory, getting 75,928 and 60,534 votes, respectively, while Bhardwaj defeated BJP's Rakesh Kumar Gullayiya by 14,583 votes in Greater Kailash.
Senior Congress leader Ajay Maken, who contested from Sadar Bazar seat, was also defeated.
BJP's chief ministerial nominee, Kiran Bedi, got 65,919 seats as she lost the battle for the Krishna Nagar constituency to AAP candidate SK Bagga Advocate by 2,277 votes.The only saving grace for BJP was the win managed by its former state unit president Vijender Gupta in Rohini.
BJP leader Om Prakash Sharma bagged 58,124 votes to edge past AAP candidate Dr Atul Gupta by 10,158 votes in Vishwas Nagar. The third BJP member elected to the Assembly is Jagdish Pradhan, who won the Mustafabad seat by 6,031 votes.
Rahul Gandhi actually voted for AAP
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has avenged Delhi with a thumping majority, rounding up the major political players - Congress and Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) from the city. The dismal performance of the other parties in the Delhi Vidhan Sabha elections is quite apparent - especially Congress that hasn't managed to get even a single seat in any of the constituencies in Delhi.
While AAP is in the midst of the mass celebrations, our sources have found out that not everybody is down in the dumps in the Congress. According to insiders in the Congress Party, Rahul Gandhi was seen dancing on Pharrell Williams' popular song 'Happy' when the election mandate was out.
When people asked around about his sudden burst of happiness, especially at this dark day in the history of the Party, he was heard whispering to his close confidant, Sanjay Jha that in fact he did vote for AAP, after all.
Rahul Gandhi's reaction evoked the gleeful smile that he had while addressing the press after losing the General Elections, back in May 2014. But this time he went one step ahead with doing the jig on the popular number.
When Arvind Kejriwal, the new chief minister of Delhi and AAP supremo, heard of this, he invited Rahul Gandhi to come over to AAP headquarters and join the party. But his one condition was, that the dance number would be '5 saal Kejriwal' only.
That's when Sonia Gandhi stepped in for an intervention. Apparently, Rahul Gandhi has been grounded for an unspecified term, with no access to TV or music, and has been asked to work on a project on 'How to salvage the Congress Party.' Feeling quite gloomy, Rahul Gandhi sent a Whatsapp message to Kejriwal offering to join his party.
Delhi Police gear up to tackle face-off with AAP govt
At a time when exit polls indicate that AAP may make a comeback in Delhi, police are gearing up to tackle a face-off — one of the top highlights in the 49-day tenure of the party last year. Sources say the police brass is trying to chalk out a possible way to avoid confrontation if AAP comes to power.
As much as 266 kg gold is missing from the famed Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple, said former chief government auditor Vinod Rai in his audit report that he submitted to the apex court on Friday.
According to media reports,of the 893 kg gold that was given out for various works, only 627 kg has been returned to the temple.
Rai was asked by the Supreme Court last year to conduct an audit of the temple's books and accounts.
A division bench of Justice R.M. Lodha and Justice A.K. Patnaik last April in its interim order had asked Rai to undertake the audit of the temple accounts and properties for the past quarter of a century. This directive came on the recommendations of amicus curiae Gopal Subramaniam, who had sought overhauling of the functioning of the temple.
Apart from asking Rai to audit the accounts of the temple, the apex court also directed the formation of a new five-member committee comprising of a judge from the capital city, the temple tantri, chief nambi of the Sri Padmanabhaswamy temple and two more members, of which one will be appointed in consultation with the state government and one would be the choice of the judge.
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