The Kerala High Court has noted several irregularities concerning the gold plating of ‘Dwarapalaka’ idols at the Sabarimala temple. The court observed that a substantial quantity of gold from the idols was not returned following a gold-plating process undertaken in 2019.
According to court observations, an individual referred to as “Potty” brought the plates for plating, and a significant portion of their original gold cladding was found to be missing upon return. The company, Smart Creations, to which the plates were taken, reportedly confirmed that it does not possess the technology to gold-plate already gold-covered items. However, the court noted that Potty allegedly insisted on the removal of the existing gold from the plates.
An investigation subsequently revealed that 474.9 grams of gold were directly handed over to Potty after the plating work. The court deemed the Travancore Devaswom Board’s (TDB) decision to entrust the plates to Potty for gold plating as suspicious. It also reiterated a previous observation that although the plates had been gold-cladded in 1999, the TDB recorded them simply as “copper plates” when they were handed over to Potty. The court further noted that the handover of the lintels for gold plating received consent from temple priests and senior officials of the TDB.
Source: https://indianexpress.com/article/india/sabarimala-gold-theft-idols-removed-10299106/