The Supreme Court on Friday castigated K N Satheesh, the executive officer (EO) for Kerala’s Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple, for making “wild” allegations against the Travancore royal family.
A bench of Justices T S Thakur and Anil R Dave told Satheesh, a senior IAS officer, not to get “carried away by ideologies, revolutionaries and politics” while acting as the temple’s executive officer.
‘Wild allegations’
Senior advocate K K Venugopal, appearing for the royal family members, pointed out K N Satheesh’s “wild” allegations in an affidavit to the court.
K K Venugopal said the executiive officer (EO) questioned the half-hour slot given to the royal family every morning to exclusively enter the temple to offer prayers.
Counsel complained that the officer had described practice, allowed by the Supreme Court , as “reminiscent of the social evil of untouchability of the past era”.
After reprimanding K N Satheesh for making these allegations, the Supreme Court asked him to withdraw his affidavit.
The court also directed him to file a fresh afadavit.
Direction of the court
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court directed former comptroller and auditor general Vinod Rai to complete the audit of the trust for the period between 2004 and 2014.
The court directed him to submit his report.