SIT arrests Sabarimala administrative officer in gold missing case
Pathanamthitta (PTI): The Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the missing gold from the Sabarimala temple arrested former administrative officer B Murari Babu, sources said on Thursday.
Babu, who was suspended by the Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) following the gold missing row, was taken into custody from his residence in Changanassery on Wednesday night, they said.
He was later shifted to the Crime Branch office in Thiruvananthapuram for interrogation, officials said.
Babu’s relatives reached the Crime Branch office on Thursday morning.
At around 10 am, SIT recorded Babu’s arrest and informed his relative about the procedure, sources said.
They were later allowed to meet the Babu.
SIT will produce Babu before the Judicial First Class Magistrate Court in Pathanamthitta here in the evening, officials said.
SIT is likely to file a petition in court seeking custody of Babu for detailed interrogation.
He is an accused in two cases related to the disappearance of gold from the gold-clad plates of the Dwarapalaka (guardian deity) idols and the door frames of the Sreekovil (sanctum sanctorum) of the temple.
In 2019, when the prime accused, Unnikrishnan Potty, proposed electroplating the Dwarapalaka idols to the TDB, Babu forwarded the proposal to the board, claiming that the gold-cladded plates were made of copper.
He reportedly forwarded a similar proposal from Potty again in 2025.
Babu was serving as Deputy Devaswom Commissioner in Haripad when he was suspended from service recently.
The TDB Vigilance, which conducted a preliminary inquiry, had submitted a report raising suspicion about the involvement of certain board officials in the removal of gold from the Dwarapalaka idols and the door frames of the Sreekovil.
The Vigilance also pointed out serious lapses by Babu and seven other TDB officials in handing over the gold-clad plates to Potty.
The SIT, which is probing the case at the direction of the Kerala High Court, has already arrested Potty.
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Ex-bureaucrat Raj Kumar Goyal sworn in as CIC; eight new information commissioners take oath
New Delhi (PTI): After a gap of nine years, transparency watchdog Central Information Commission attained its full strength with the appointment of former IAS officer Raj Kumar Goyal and eight other information commissioners, who took the oath of office on Monday.
A three-member panel headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week recommended their names for the appointment.
President Droupadi Murmu administered the oath of office to Goyal as the chief information commissioner (CIC) at a ceremony held at the Rashtrapati Bhavan, her office said in a communique.
The event was attended by Vice President C P Radhakrishnan and Union Minister of State for Personnel Jitendra Singh, among others.
Goyal is a 1990-batch (retired) IAS officer of the Arunachal Pradesh-Goa-Mizoram-Union Territories (AGMUT) cadre. He superannuated as secretary, Department of Justice under the Ministry of Law and Justice, on August 31.
He has also served as secretary (border management) in the Home Ministry and held key posts both at the Centre and in the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir.
The post of CIC fell vacant after Heeralal Samariya completed his term on September 13.
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The Commission is headed by a CIC and can have a maximum of 10 information commissioners. With the new appointments, the Commission attained its full strength after a gap of over nine years, according to transparency activists.
In the presence of two incumbent Information Commissioners, Anandi Ramalingam and Vinod Kumar Tiwari, Goyal administered the oath of office to eight new appointees at the swearing-in ceremony.
They included former Railway Board chief Jaya Verma Sinha, former IPS officer Swagat Das -- who held key posts in the Intelligence Bureau, Home Ministry and Cabinet Secretariat, among others -- Central Secretariat Service (CSS) officer Sanjeev Kumar Jindal, former IAS officer Surendra Singh Meena and ex-Indian Forest Service officer Khushwant Singh Sethi.
Senior journalists P R Ramesh and Ashutosh Chaturvedi, and former Indian Legal Service officer Sudha Rani Relangi, have also been sworn in as information commissioners.
Relangi has also worked as the director of prosecution, Central Bureau of Investigation and joint secretary and legislative counsel in the Ministry of Law and Justice.
The names of the CIC and eight information commissioners were cleared during the meeting of the Modi-led committee comprising Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi.
