VIJAYAWADA: The state government has consented to entrust the audit of the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) to the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India from 2020-21 onwards to ensure transparency in the temple trust board’s accounting and auditing systems and retain full confidence of devotees and donors in the same.
The CAG will also be requested to conduct a special audit of the TTD for the years 2014-15 to 2019-20 and furnish its report within six months. TTD chairman YV Subba Reddy told TNIE that BJP Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy had filed a petition in the high court to reverify accounts of the TTD during the TDP regime.
“We discussed the issue at the TTD Trust Board meeting on August 28 and passed a resolution for re-audit of TTD accounts. Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy advised us to conduct the re-audit not with any other chartered accountants but to request the CAG to do it. He was of the view that TTD audit should be conducted by CAG during the YSRC government’s tenure too. Based on his advice, we have taken this decision,” he explained.
Subramanian Swamy and an advocate Satya Pal Sabharwal had filed the petition in the high court in 2018 seeking a directive to free the Tirumala temple from government control by declaring Sections such as 15, 29, 96 etc of the Andhra Pradesh Charitable and Hindu Religious Institutions and Endowments Act-1987 as unconstitutional. In the same petition, they had sought an interim injunction for an external audit of the TTD accounts, utilisation of funds and properties including jewellery for three financial years beginning 2014-2015. Their plea came in the wake of a controversy over alleged missing jewels of the Tirumala temple.
The TTD has maintained that the provisions of the AP Charitable and Hindu Religious Institutions and Endowments Act cited by the petitioners are not unconstitutional. It has also contended that management of the TTD has always been with the state and no religious denomination had any rights over the management of the Tirumala temple at any point of time. It has pointed out that the TTD Trust Board is independent.
At its board meeting on August 28, the TTD reviewed its accounting and audit systems “keeping in view the criticism being made in social and mainstream media from time to time regarding various types of expenditure and the need to improve the confidence of the pilgrims and donors in the systems adopted by the Board.”
Audit of TTD consists of two types — statutory and internal audit. Statutory audit is being conducted by the state audit department since 1961-62 except for three years from 2003-06 during which period Brahmayya and Co, a CA firm was appointed as statutory auditor. The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) had recommended in its special report (2004-05) that CAG be asked to audit TTD accounts. The TTD Trust Board, based on the PAC recommendation, had requested the State government in 2008 to approve the same but its request was rejected at that time.