Sabarimala gold theft row: Kerala’s Opposition demands High Court-monitored CBI probe

Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) Opposition in Kerala on Saturday (October 4, 2025) demanded a High Court-monitored Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the alleged misappropriation of valuable gold-plated copper foils covering the intricate stone carvings, including sculptures, at the Sabarimala temple. 

Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan said that between 2019 and 2025, the gilded coverings were removed from the temple several times, apparently for repair and refurbishment, and subsequently taken to workshops in Hyderabad and Chennai. “The case had inter-State ramifications and lay beyond the jurisdiction of the Kerala Police”, he said.

Mr. Satheesan noted that the Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) had commissioned Unnikrishnan Potty, a former temple helper, to remove the gold coverings, donated by businessman Vijay Mallaya in 1999, from the temple for repair at a workshop in Chennai.

Mr. Satheesan said the mystery deepened with the workshop management testifying recently that the metal panels deposited for restoration by Mr. Potty, nearly four months after he took custody of the artefacts, were made of “pure copper.”

Mr. Satheesan said an internal audit by the TDB’s Vigilance wing in 2019 had noted a discrepancy in the weight between the original panels and those returned after repair.

“Sufficient evidence has emerged in the public domain showing Mr. Potty carting around the religious objects to the houses of influential people for private worship. It is also suspicious that Mr. Potty has no satisfactory explanation as to why he kept the gilded plaques in his custody for four months and what transpired during the period”, he said. 

Mr. Satheesan said Sabarimala temple artefacts had “infinite emotional value” for Ayyappa devotees. They were concerned that someone might have replicated the original gilded panels in a different metal to steal the original plates for their immense religious value, he said.

Moreover, the TDB’s mystifying classification of the panels earmarked for repair in 2019 as pure copper begged the question of what happened to the original gold coverings installed in 1999, he added.

Mr. Satheesan said Mr. Potty claimed to have a TDB certification, which classified the temple artefacts entrusted to him in 2010 as being made solely of copper and containing no gold.

He said that despite the TDB’s Vigilance expressing scepticism about the variation in weight of the artefacts returned by Mr. Potty in 2019 and their metallic nature, the Sabarimala Devaswom again commissioned him for repairing temple coverings at the workshop in Chennai.

He said the UDF would raise the “government’s deceit” in the Assembly and on the streets on Monday (October 6, 2025).