The Supreme Court on Friday came close to removing KN Satheesh, the executive officer for Sree Padmanabha Swamy temple in Kerala, for his baseless allegations against the Travancore royal family. The court has also asked former CAG Vinod Rai to step in and audit the temple’s accounts.
A bench comprising justices T S Thakur and Anil R Dave slammed Satheesh for his wild allegations, stating that he should not be "carried away by ideologies, revolutionaries and politics”.
“You are dealing with us in the capacity of the temple officer and should have been careful while penning down the affidavit,” the bench warned Satheesh as per the report.
The New Indian Express reports that court has directed Vinod Rai to complete the audit of the trust for 2004-2014 soon and submit a report in the court.
The trouble started when senior advocate K K Venugopal, representing the royal family members, complained about the allegations made by Satheesh against his clients in an affidavit to the court.
TNIE further reports that Venugopal also complained that the officer had even taken exception to the half-hour slot given to the royal family every morning to exclusively enter the temple to offer prayers. “The officer said the practice was reminiscent of the social evil of untouchability of the past era,” he said.
In the complaint it was also mentioned that Satheesh was making baseless allegations against the royal family like approaching him for favours and even threatening him.
“Because of them the temple exists, they established the temple... but now you want to take that away from them... You seem to be a gentleman... Please understand, the times of privy purses are over and there may come a time when the royal families may go... but till then traditions will continue...,” Justice Thakur told Mr. Satheesh, who apologised later as per The Hindu report.
This is an aggregated news report from The New Indian Express and The Hindu.