KOCHI: Criticising the Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) over financial mismanagement, the Kerala High Court has observed that the board’s failure to maintain proper, verifiable and contemporaneous accounts amounts to a fundamental lapse in management.
The court ordered immediate digitisation of the board’s accounts. “The divine assets of the temples cannot be left vulnerable to outdated ledgers and missing records,” the court observed. It issued the order in a case pertaining to the devaswom audit report.
The court noted that even audits more than a decade old remain pending, primarily on account of missing vouchers, incomplete records, and obsolete accounting systems still being followed across the devaswom institutions. The continued reliance on manual registers and paper vouchers has made the accounting system vulnerable to manipulation and defalcation.
Depending on archaic manual record-keeping, absence of digitised accounting systems and failure to conduct timely audits reveal a pattern of gross administrative indifference. Such neglect has rendered the board a passive enabler, and in effect, an active participant in financial indiscipline, it said.
When vouchers disappear, receipts remain unverified and audits are delayed for years, opacity becomes institutionalised, creating fertile ground for misappropriation and corruption. This abdication of responsibility has allowed errant employees to misuse temple funds with impunity, secure in the knowledge that systemic weaknesses will shield their misconduct, the court said.
It is imperative that the board immediately shift to a fully digitised, end-to-end accounting framework, the court said.
HC: Reforms essential for seamless audits
All receipts, bills and vouchers must be entered in real time into a centralised financial management system accessible to both audit and supervisory authorities, the court said.
The court emphasised that such reforms are essential to restore transparency, ensure accountability and enable audits to be conducted seamlessly and within the time limits prescribed by law. An immediate systemic overhaul and a culture strict financial accountability must be established within the administrative machinery of the devaswom boards.
The HC also directed the director of Kerala State Audit Department, Thiruvananthapuram, to appear before the court on October 30.
