Sabarimala scam: How a Kerala priest gold-plated his sinister plots and sold it to Devaswom board officials

Unnikrishnan Potty, the priest-turned-sponsor who is in the centre of the Sabarimala gold-plate scandal, always found a way to bend the Devaswom board officials to his will. The documents presented in the High Court by the Devaswom board, the findings of the Devaswom Vigilance SP and the Sabarimala High Commissioner's report unravel a pattern. While acceding to Potty’s proposals, the officials flouted HC directives, standard protocol, the mandate prescribed in the board manual and even contradicted themselves.

The HC began looking into the issue following a report of the special commissioner, which said that the gold-plated copper coverings of the "Dwarapalaka idols" on either side of the sanctum sanctorum were removed without prior intimation to the special commissioner.

The Devaswom board officials sent the gold-clad plates to Smart Creations in Chennai on September 8, 2025. Potty initiated this move with an email he had sent in October 2024. In the mail, he said that in 2019, he had completed the gold coating works on the Dwarapalaka idols. He pointed out that a closer examination of the idols showed discolouring due to extreme climate change. He expressed his wish to apply one more layer of gold coating on the idols. According to him, it will make them brighter again for decades to come. He also requested that the former pair of gold-coated idols, kept idly in the strong room, be supplied for extracting the gold coating on them to minimise the total expenditure.

The board officials, who acted on this mail, did not bother to check the warranty card issued by Smart Creations in 2019. The certificate issued in September 2019 showed that the gold-plating was guaranteed for a period of 40 years.

When Potty sent an email on colour-fade due to climate change, no questions were asked regarding the warranty. In his mail, Potty extols the advantages of electroplating over traditional gold-cladding. The board then directed the Devaswom smith to prepare a report which stated that an estimated 101.05 sqft covering Dwarapalakas, peedam, thangu peedam, lintel, door panel, Lakshmi roopam and kamanam would have to be coated with gold weighing 303gm.

The lone indication of objection was raised by the Thiruvabharanam commissioner, but here again, the question was not why the work had to be done again when the warranty was for 40 years. The commissioner wrote to the executive officer that certain portions of the dwarapalakas were already gold-coated and that Smart Creations, Chennai, lacked the technical expertise to remove the existing coat. He stated that the work should therefore be executed only through traditional methods.

This objection was short-lived. A week later, he changed the stance and issued another communication recommending that the gold-cladded components be transported to Smart Creations for electroplating. The HC also took note of a letter sent by the Thiruvabharanam commissioner referring to the directions issued by the Devaswom president to expedite the gold plating work as agreed to be undertaken by the sponsor. The HC has recorded that the Thiruvabharanam commissioner abruptly reversed his stance, purportedly after further discussions with the sponsor.

While taking this decision, the board overlooked the HC order of 2023 directing that the board, the Devaswom commissioner and the Thiruvabharanam commissioner shall ensure that activities in the sanctum sanctorum are undertaken only with prior intimation, well in advance, to the special commissioner, Sabarimala. The board had then taken out mudramala, japamala and yoga dandu adorning the Ayyappa idol for repair without intimating the special commissioner, Sabarimala.

Potty could effect the transfer of gold-plated idols to Chennai citing colour-fade in September 2025 in a similar way he had operated in 2019. He had then approached the Devaswom Board to undertake the gold-plating of the idols at his own sponsorship. The officials overlooked the fact that the plates had already been gold-cladded in 1999 and the mahazar prepared in 2019 referred to the gold-cladded plates as copper plates. It was this omission which forced the court to observe that the action was highly unusual and indicative of irregularities. The weight of the items were also not recorded at the time of fixing the plates.

The court couldn't find an instance where any of the board officials bothered to tell Potty that the Dwarapalakas handed over to him in 2019 had been cladded with 1.564 kg of gold. A letter issued by the manager (Finance), McDowell & Company Ltd, United Breweries Group, in 1999 showed that this gold was used to cover the entire roof of the sanctum sanctorum, the rain gutter, the hundi, the panels on both sides of the sanctum sanctorum, the front door and the arch, two Dwarapalakas, three Ghanadwarams, the side beadings, eight surrounding pillars and five kalasams.

The documents have evidently indicated deliberate omissions on the part of the officials, according to the HC, which will now be probed by the ADGP-led special investigation team. "There also appears to be a distinct and grave possibility that the original gold-clad Dwarapalakas were disposed of to a willing purchaser for a substantial monetary consideration and that the proceeds thereof were misappropriated by those responsible for the fraud," the HC noted.