Kochi: The Kerala High Court has directed the state government to expedite the procedures to sanction prosecution against the accused in the Sabarimala gold theft case. The court said that measures should be taken to obtain the necessary legal advice and submit the application for allowing prosecution before the authorities concerned, at the earliest.

In its order, a Devaswom Bench comprising Justices V Raja Vijayaraghavan and K V Jayakumar said that the charge sheet in the case should be filed immediately after the sanction is received.

Superintendent of Police (SP) S Sasidharan Kartha, the investigating officer, informed the court that the probe into the case related to the theft of gold from the doorframes of the sanctum sanctorum of the Sabarimala Temple has already been completed. According to the investigating officer, prosecution sanction has to be obtained from the government prior to the submission of the charge sheet.

While a factual report and a draft charge sheet have been prepared in the case, the advice of the Assistant Legal Advisor, which has to be submitted along with it, is yet to be received, said the SP. Even though an appointment has taken place in the post, the Advisor has not taken charge, leading to the prosecution delay, the investigating officer explained.

At the same time, Director General of Prosecution T Asaf Ali told the court that steps would be taken to ensure that the Assistant Legal Advisor takes charge immediately and legal advice is made available at the earliest.

The court said that the investigation into the theft of gold from the Dwarapalaka idols at the temple and procedures to obtain prosecution sanction have to be completed by November 25, as per its previous order.

The case will next be considered on November 10.

Online booking rooms to be cut
Meanwhile, the temple authorities are planning to reduce the number of rooms offered to devotees for stay at Sabarimala Sannidhanam that can be booked online. When the temple had opened for the monthly rituals during ‘Thulam’, all 400 rooms, including the 10 rooms at Sabari Guest House, were made available for online booking. However, all the rooms were reserved within hours after the booking window opened. As a result, even VIPs who arrived at the temple during the ‘Thulam’ month rituals did not get rooms.

The authorities decided to consider a proposal to slash the number of rooms which could be booked online after finding that a few persons had carried out multiple bookings.