Sabarimala gold theft case: SIT obtains police custody of former TDB president and CPI(M) leader A. Padmakumar for further questioning

The Kerala High Court-appointed special investigation team (SIT) probing the Sabarimala gold-plated artefacts misappropriation case has obtained the police custody of former Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) president and Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] leader A. Padmakumar for further questioning.

The SIT had on Wednesday (November 26, 2025) produced Mr. Padmakumar before the Inquiry Commissioner and Special Vigilance Judge, Kollam. The court remanded Mr. Padmakumar in SIT custody till Friday.

Mr. Padmakumar has been in judicial remand at the District Sub Jail in Thiruvananthapuram, following his arrest last week after hours of questioning at the Kerala State Police Crime Branch office at Enchakkal in Thiruvananthapuram. The SIT had earlier named Mr. Padmakumar as the eighth accused in the case.

It had indicted him primarily for allegedly giving an undue pecuniary advantage to Unnikrishnan Potti, the main accused in the case, by accepting, as the then TDB president, the latter’s “dubious offer” in 2019 to restore the gold-plated copper panels covering the temple’s stone carvings and sculptures to their original golden sheen free of cost.  (Industrialist Vijay Mallya had donated the panels to the temple in 1998).

The SIT had also accused Mr. Padmakumar of presiding over the “wilful miscategorisation” of the gilded panels as made of pure copper, allegedly opening the door to their suspected replication, smelting the alloy for gold, and chartering out the artefacts to wealthy devotees for private veneration at their homes and business premises. 

The SIT’s case was that the “false accounting” of the precious alloy’s metallic properties provided the suspects with a shield against potential legal jeopardy and opened the door for the pilferage. 

Following Mr. Padmakumar’s arrest, the SIT raided his house at Aranmula and confiscated several items, including bank statements, title deeds, other financial records and his passport. 

Officials said the SIT seemed eager to examine the nature of Mr. Padmakumar’s relationship with Mr. Potti and whether they had a mutually beneficial financial arrangement.

Furthermore, the SIT has already requested details regarding any foreign travel undertaken by Mr. Padmakumar. 

Officials said the SIT was also probing Mr. Padmakumar, along with other suspects in the case, on charges of theft, criminal misappropriation, breach of trust, and falsification of records concerning the crime.

The SIT was also investigating whether Mr. Padmakumar had “altered” the TDB minutes to facilitate the crime by unduly favouring Mr. Potti.

Mr. Potti, who worked as an aide to an assistant priest at the temple during the 2004-08 period, had subsequently cultivated a network of wealthy donors and gained traction within the TDB and also Sabarimala’s priestly orthodoxy.

The alleged crime came to light after Mr. Potti told news channels earlier that two gold-plated copper panels he had “donated” to the temple in 2019 had gone missing. The High Court ordered the TDB’s Vigilance wing to investigate the accusation. The internal Vigilance recovered the “missing” panels from Mr. Potti’s house, lifting the lid on other felonies, including misappropriation of temple artefacts.