THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: In a major blow to the special investigation team probing the Sabarimala gold theft case, the Kollam Vigilance court on Thursday granted bail to former Sabarimala administrative officer S Sreekumar, who is the sixth accused in the case pertaining to theft of gold from the dwarapalaka idols.
Sreekumar was the administrative officer when the alleged offence took place. The court granted him bail after noting that the SIT could not produce any incriminating evidence to establish his direct involvement in the case. The SIT had arrested him after accusing him of signing the mahazar which mentioned gold-plated copper plates as copper plates.
The court accepted Sreekumar’s argument that he had joined the Sabarimala duty just two days prior to the signing of the mahazar, which was already prepared. Sreekumar argued that it was Murari Babu, his predecessor, who prepared the mahazar and he was told to sign it by the executive officer. The prosecution raised an objection against the bail plea, but it was overruled. Sreekumar has got only one case against him and the verdict paves way for his release from prison.
He was arrested on December 17 and has been in remand since then.
The court had earlier granted statutory bail to Murari Babu after the SIT failed to file chargesheets against him in two cases pertaining to the gold theft. Prime accused Unnikrishnan Potti too got statutory bail in dwarapalaka idol gold theft case after the SIT failed to submit the chargesheet. The High Court had taken a serious note of the SIT lapse and criticised it for the delay.