Sabarimala Gold Theft: Kerala High Court Criticises SIT For Delay In Filing Chargesheet Leading To Accused Being Released On Default Bail

The Kerala High Court on Tuesday (January 27) orally criticised the Special Investigation Team for its delay in submitting the final report in the Sabarimala gold theft case, which has led to some of the accused being released on statutory bail.

Recently, the prime accused Unnikrishnan Potty was granted statutory bail in one of the cases and Murari Babu was also granted default bail by the Enquiry Commissioner and Special Judge (Vigilance), Kollam since the chargesheet was not filed within the mandatory 90 day period.

Justice A. Badharudeen made the oral observation while hearing the plea preferred by Smart Creations CEO Pankaj Bhandari challenging his arrests in the Sabarimala gold misappropriation case as 'illegal'.

The Court remarked that the public faith in the investigation would be affected if more accused persons gets released on statutory bail:

"That is a very serious matter...You see, we have many stages in investigation. Once you are able to find out some person involved, and a report against him could be given in the form of final report, then that can be filed to avoid release of the accused on the benefit of statutory bail. Otherwise, what will happen? You see, if you are allowing all the accused to go on default bail where this Court and the Supreme Court and the trial court denied bail. Then the public will have doubt what is happening in the investigation. If so, what will happen? All the accused may go on default bail. All are about to complete 90 days, counting the days they are in jail. You do something to avoid. You please ensure that none of the accused hereafter will get the benefit of default bail. Otherwise, everything the anxiety of the public at large that the investigation to be…the rest I'm not disclosing. You please understand what I said."

The Court today heard detailed arguments by Senior Advocate B. Raman Pillai appearing on behalf of Bhandari and by Additional Director General of Prosecution (ADGP) Gracious Kuriakose. It then reserved its verdict in the plea.

The prosecution allegation is that Bhandari along with the other accused in the case, including prime accused Unnikrishnan Potty, conspired together to misappropriate gold from the Dwarapalaka idols and the doorframes of the Sreekovil of Sabarimala temple and in furtherance of this, Potty took the gold-cladded items to Smart Creations, which stripped the gold knowing it to belong to the Travancore Devaswom Board.

Bhandari was arrested on December 19 and has been in custody since. However, according to him, he was not informed the grounds of arrest. It was further argued that his arrest was not intimated to any of his relatives on the day of his arrest and it was done only the next day via email to his wife.

It was contended that remand application was supplied prior to the remand order and since Bhandari, being from Tamil Nadu, did not know Malayalam the copy of the remand report in Malayalam would not be sufficient. Another contention taken was that legal consultation was denied to the accused and he was not represented by a lawyer at the time of his remand, which was conducted in Malayalam.

The petition is moved by Senior Advocate B. Raman Pillai, Advocates S. Vishnu, V.S. Viswambharan, Naik Chirag Dhananjay, Mathrawala Noopur Vishal, Mahesh Bhanu S., R. Anil, Sujesh Menon V.B., Lilin Lal.

Case No: WP (Crl.) 52/2026

Case Title: Pankaj Bhandari v. State of Kerala and Ors.