Public officials must protect institutional assets; failure constitutes serious misconduct under the IPC and Prevention of Corruption Act.

COMMON ORDER

B.A.No.13835/2025 is an application for anticipatory bail filed by the 4^th accused in Crime No.3700/2025 of Crime Branch, Thiruvananthapuram. The 6^th accused in the said crime has filed bail application No.13782/2025 seeking pre-arrest bail.

2. Heard the respective learned counsel for the petitioners at length as well as the learned Additional Director General of Prosecution (ADGP) appearing for the prosecution. Perused the relevant records.

3. Coming to the prosecution allegation, initially, crime No.3700/2025 was registered alleging commission of offences punishable under Sections 120B 403, 406, 409, 466, 467 r/w. Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code (hereinafter referred to as ‘ IPC ’). During investigation, on finding involvement of offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act as amended in 2018 (hereinafter referred to as ‘PC (Amendment) Act, 2018’), offence under Section 13 (1)(a) of the PC (Amendment) Act, 2018 was also added. The prosecution case is that, in furtherance of a common intention of all the accused to obtain wrongful gain and to cause wrongful loss to the Travancore Devaswom Board, the 1^st accused hatched conspiracy with accused Nos.2 to 10, who are bound to protect Devaswom properties, submitted an application before the Travancore Devaswom Board on 17.6.2019, in consequence of the conspiracy hatched between them for exacting that the Dwarapalaka sculptures made of copper plates in the Sabarimala Sannidhanam Shrine to be enshrouded with gold by process of cladding. The prosecution allegation further is that the 2^nd accused, the then Administrative Officer, Sabarimala, and all other accused fully aware that the Dwarapalaka sculptures were originally gold cladded in 1998, the 2^nd accused wrote a letter in the year 2019 that they were just copper plates, which were intended to be plated with gold, and submitted a false report before the Travancore Devaswom Board in this regard. Then, in the year 2024, the 2^nd accused again made an illegal recommendation to the Devaswom Board to allow 'Smart Creations', Chennai, for gold plating the Dwarapalaka sculptures. The 3^rd accused, the then Executive Officer of Sabarimala Temple, who also knew that the plates of Dwarapalaka sculptures were enshrouded in gold, prepared a false recommendation letter stating that the golden plates are just copper plates and submitted the said letter to the Travancore Devaswom Board, for the purpose of giving the same to the accused. Thereafter, at the time of handing over the plates to the 1^st accused, the 3^rd accused prepared mahazars stating that the gold plates are just copper plates and falsely included the names of persons, who were not present at the time of preparing the mahazars, and recorded in the mahazars that the plates were being given to the 1^st accused, and the signatures of the friends of the 1^st accused were obtained. Accordingly, the 4^th accused, the then Secretary, Travancore Devaswom Board ordered to handover the plates on Dwarapalaka sculptures to the 1^st accused, as against the Board Minutes. The 5^th and the 6^th accused, although they knew that the Dwarapalaka sculptures were enshrouded with gold plates, put their signatures on the mahazars prepared on 19.07.2019 and 20.07.2019 as witnesses and caused the articles to be handed over to the 1^st accused, and on 11.09.2019, when the Dwarapalaka sculptures were brought back to Sabarimala, prepared the second mahazar, without checking its actual weight. It is