Advocate ‘Elephant’ G. Rajendran, 73, on whose instance many idol theft cases had come to light, on Thursday claimed before the Madras High Court that the Idol Wing-Criminal Investigation Department (CID) has so far laid hands only on ‘idol thieves’ and was yet to act against ‘jewel thieves.’
Appearing before a Division Bench of Justices R. Mahadevan and P.D. Audikesavalu, he alleged that most of the ancient precious jewels, including those containing pearls and gems, had been stolen from the Sriranganathaswamy Temple at Srirangam in Tiruchi and were replaced with jewellery of inferior quality. He insisted on the need for a thorough verification of the temple jewels.
‘Festivals ongoing’
However, senior counsel Chitra Sampath, representing the temple management, said, no physical verification could be carried out at least for the next 20 days as Pagal Pathu and Ra Pathu festival had to be celebrated in the temple.
Stating that they were not going to direct the police to conduct any physical verification, the judges ordered the Idol Wing to submit a report on the allegations within a week after conducting inquiries with the temple management as well as the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR&CE) department.
However, the HR&CE department objected to Mr. Rajendran’s plea and claimed that it was in no way different from a petition already filed by Rangarajan Narasimhan of Srirangam alleging theft of several ancient artefacts from the temple and seeking a direction to register a First Information Report on the basis of his complaint.
“There can’t be two FIRs for the same cause of action,” a senior counsel representing the department contended.
Allaying his fears, the judges said that the two cases related to the temple shall be tagged together since Mr. Rajendran had made added allegations to what was already made by Mr. Narasimhan.
Kapaleeswarar Temple case
While hearing another case related to missing of a peacock idol from the Kapaleeswarar Temple at Mylapore here, the judges gave liberty to the temple management and HR&CE officials to conduct an internal fact finding inquiry dehors the criminal investigation being conducted by the Idol Wing CID.
The liberty was granted after it was brought to the notice of the court that the Idol Wing CID had written a letter to the temple management on November 15 asking it to stop the in-house inquiry. “Your inquiry can go on and let a report be filed before this court. Idol Wing can also proceed simultaneously,” Mr. Justice Mahadevan said.
