KOCHI: The Special Investigation Team probing the Sabarimala gold theft case informed the Kerala High Court that former CPM MLAA Padmakumar, who was the president of the Board, committed grave official misconduct by deliberately making false entries in official correspondences, which ultimately led to the misappropriation of gold, thereby causing irreparable unlawful financial loss and reputation to the Board.
The SIT report stated that Padmakumar, despite knowing that the door frames were gold-clad, made corrections in his own handwriting in official documents. He struck out the word ‘brass’ and wrote ‘copper plates’ instead of ‘gold-clad copper plates.’ He also wrote the word ‘approved’ in his own handwriting. By allowing the gold-cladded door frames plates to be transported to Chennai, Padmakumar violated the provisions of Travancore Devaswom Manual.
In the bail plea, Padmakumar made a contention that the mahazer was attested by several persons which would show that only the signatories were aware of the fact that the doors were being removed from the temple premises and he was not present at the alleged place of occurrence.
The SIT stated that this contention is untenable, because as the president of the Board, he cannot shirk his responsibility of protecting the valuables of the devaswom from any misuse. Instead he committed grave misconduct by making false entries.