SIT seeks VSSC expertise to quantify original gold content in Sabarimala temple’s gilded panels

The High Court-appointed special investigation team (SIT) has sought the expertise of the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) to quantify the amount of gold in the gold-plated copper alloy moulds donated by industrialist Vijay Mallya in 1998 to encase the Sabarimala Ayyappa temple’s stone carvings, sculptures flanking the sanctum sanctorum, and the doorway panels. 

The VSSC’s forthcoming metallurgical analysis report may provide the SIT with a scientific baseline for comparing the metallurgical nature of the original gilded panels with those returned to the temple after restoration by prime accused Unnikrishnan Potti in 2019. The SIT had received the High Court’s permission to remove some of the original panels from the temple for testing at the VSSC. 

Officials said the investigation had reached a crucial juncture following the arrest of Pankaj Bhandari, owner of Smart Creations in Ambattur, Chennai, last Friday. Mr. Potti had engaged the metalworks firm to restore the “frayed” gilded panels to their original golden sheen in 2019. 

The SIT had indicted Mr. Bhandari for extracting gold from the original ‘24-carat’ gold-embedded copper encasings using a chemical process.  The SIT alleged that Mr. Bhandari had appropriated 400 gm of the residual gold from the chemical “parting process” as his share of the “loot.” It accused Mr. Potti of selling the remaining gold precipitate, an estimated 102 gm, to Govardhan, owner of Roddam Jewellery in Bellary, Karnataka.

Officials said the SIT had recovered a part of the “loot.” They stressed that further investigation was under way to detect how the suspects monetised the Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) property and who else profited from the crime. 

The SIT had also established that the accused extracted the gold content from the moulds covering the Dwarapalaka sculptures, “dasha avatar”, and zodiac carvings, the gilded panels enveloping the doorway to the sanctum sanctorum, and the “Prabha Mandalam” that adorns the entrance. 

Officials said the SIT established that the gilded temple artefacts, of unquantifiable religious value to Ayyappa devotees, had been tampered with to extract embedded gold. It also detected a discrepancy in the weight of the panels returned to the temple after refurbishment in 2019, with the original 1998 moulds. 

The SIT’s primary case was that the accused conspired with TDB officials to gain an unlawful financial benefit by “misappropriating” the gilded panels and tampering with them for gold, thereby causing a loss to the exchequer. 

The SIT had accused serving and former TDB officials of facilitating the fraud by falsely certifying that the gilded artefacts were made of pure copper before entrusting the panels to Mr. Potti, a private individual, for restoration. 

So far, the SIT has obtained the judicial remand and subsequent police custody (for interrogation) of former TDB presidents N. Vasu and A. Padmakumar, both Communist Party of India (Marxist) nominees, and temple officials K.S. Baiju, D. Sudheesh Kumar, and Murari Babu.