THIRUVANANTHAPURAM (KERALA):The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Travancore royal family why it was opposing the auditing of the Sree Padmanabhaswami Temple Trust accounts.
It has also asked the Temple Trust to file an affidavit on the auditor and former CAG Vinod Rai’s charge that the Temple Trust had not allowed him to audit the accounts. It was amicus curiae Gopal Subramaniam who brought the complaint of Vinod Rai to the notice of the court. Vinod Rai had called for the accounts of the Temple Trust last November and December. But the royal family had taken the stand that the Trust’s accounts would not come under the purview of the audit.
The amicus curiae had pointed out that the Temple Trust which owns wedding halls and other properties had not been paying any amount from its income to the temple for the last seven years.
The court asked why the auditor could not be allowed to audit the account when the Temple Trust was a Public Trust and its income could not be claimed by the trustees. However, K K Venugopal, counsel for the Temple trustee, submitted that the Temple Trust was independent of the temple and it was not giving the income to the temple.
M K S Menon, counsel for the royal family, said that the Temple Trust was a private Trust registered under the Indian Trust Act. But Moolam Thirunal Ramavarma, the temple trustee, is also the Managing Trustee of the Sree Padmanabhaswami Temple Trust. Other members are the members of the royal family.
The Supreme Court also extended for three more months the term of the expert committee which conducts examination of the temple vaults. It has asked the committee to complete the examination (inventorying) of G and H vaults in three months. The committee was also asked to compete the repair of the idol.
The Supreme Court division Bench comprising Justices T S Thakur and Anil R Dave also decided to examine whether there was any direct connection with the Temple and the Sree Padmanabhaswami Temple Trust.
The Temple trust was also allowed to be impleaded in the temple case.