Why Kerala High Court found 'kutti books' at Sabarimala temple disturbing during ghee sale fraud probe?

School-series notebooks, colloquially referred to as 'kutti books', ridden with corrections and overwritings, are used to record sales and stock of Adiya Sishtam ghee at Sabarimala Ayyappa temple, the interim report submitted by the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB) reveals.

The Devaswom Bench of the High Court, which read the report, expressed strong disapproval regarding the careless and casual manner in which records have been maintained.

The High Court ordered a vigilance probe into the alleged fraud in the sale of Adiya Sishtam ghee, the sacred offering sold to Ayyappa devotees at Sabarimala temple in January.

The alleged fraud came to light following an inspection conducted by the Chief Vigilance and Security Officer of the Travancore Devaswom Board in response to a report from the Temple Special Officer.

As many as 33 persons, which include Temple Special Officers and approximately 30 counter staff, have been arrayed as accused in the crime, the special investigation team of the VACB informed the court.

The report then goes on to detail shoddy accounts management at the temple, which forced the court to remark that even a person running a modest, petty shop would be expected to maintain far better accounting discipline to ensure that income and stock are properly reconciled.

The VACB probe has revealed that employees with as little as one week of service on the board have been deputed to handle the sensitive assignments involving substantial cash and stock.

"Shockingly, no formal proceedings or authenticated records exist detailing staff deployment at each counter. Instead, a list is merely prepared and displayed at the office of the Temple Special Officer, indicating postings," the order noted.

The court noted as 'disturbing', the manner in which packeted ghee is issued for sale. The Temple Special Officer issues packets to counters after recording quantities in a notebook, which in Malayalam is referred to as 'kutti book'.

Separate notebooks are maintained for each counter and kept in the Temple Office. These notebooks record the number of packets issued along with the signatures of receiving counter staff.

The VACB produced one such school-series notebook of about 200 pages relating to the ghee counter. The notebook contains multiple corrections, overwritings, and interlineations. The court directed that the board and its officials are expected to exercise far greater oversight in matters which generate several lakhs of rupees daily by way of income.

The team also consulted audit authorities and the review concluded that the anomalies in the accounts and stock management, coupled with a quantified short remittance of ₹21,39,190 constitute clear financial irregularities and misappropriation in the sale and remittance of Adiya Sishtam ghee during the Sabarimala Mandala-Makaravilakku season.

The HC has ordered that a standardised, end-to-end procedure is put in place to monitor the quantity of offerings such as ghee made by devotees on a daily and seasonal basis, the source, procurement, and accounting of raw materials and ingredients used in the preparation of prasadams, appam, manufacturing practices, including supervision, quality control, and custody of materials and mechanisms for storage, transportation, and counter-wise distribution.