Giving immediate relief to the Travancore royal family, which opposes opening of the mysterious “Cellar-B” of Kerala’s Padman-abha Swamy Temple, from where fabulous riches were discovered some time back, the Supreme Court declined to pass any order in this regard.
A bench of Justices R.V. Raveendran, A.K. Patnaik and H.L. Gokhale held that the “kallar or Cellar-B” — whose opening is opposed by the royal family — would be opened only after completion of the inventory of the wealth recovered earlier.
The royal family opposed the cellar’s opening as it feels it inauspicious, saying even Lord Padmanabha Swamy refused sanction in the “dev prashnam (divine permission)”.
The court also rejected the plea of the five-member expert committee appointed by it to hand over the temple’s security to Central paramilitary forces, while directing the Kerala government to upgrade security there because of the huge recovered wealth kept at the shrine.
The total value of the recovered wealth at the temple in Thiruvanant-hapuram had been estimated at around `1.50 lakh crores, while the court asked all stakeholders to refrain from making speculative estimates.
The court directed the temple authorities to provide `25 lakhs annually for maintenance and security expenses. If this was insufficient, the state government would pay for its remaining financial needs, the court said, turning down the committee’s proposal to float a tender to hire private contractors for maintenance and “preservation” of the assets.