Audit Flags Lighter Replica in Sabarimala Crown, Board Says Original Is Secure

The dispute over a donated 55.72‑sovereign crown exposes weak strongroom controls and recordkeeping that could frustrate efforts to establish custody.

Overview

The Kerala High Court‑directed Thiruvabharanam inventory, reported on Thursday, found a crown recorded as 445.78 grams in 2012 was represented in the strongroom by a look‑alike weighing about 240 grams, a gap investigators say points to a possible swap.
Travancore Devaswom Board president K. Jayakumar denied the crown was missing and said the Thiruvabharanam commissioner inspected and verified the original was in the Sannidhanam strongroom after a temporary relocation of valuables.
TDB officials told auditors the early alarm stemmed from confusion with a decorative copper “fancy” crown that is sometimes brought by devotees and kept with other ornaments for rituals.
Investigators flag practical gaps that complicate tracing custody, including no CCTV at the strongroom, short one‑year rotations of administrators, and inconsistent transfers between the Sannidhanam vault and the more secure Aranmula facility.
The court‑ordered inventory is ongoing and may lead to a formal probe to reconcile the auditors’ weight discrepancy with the board’s verification and to tighten safeguards for Sabarimala’s devotional valuables.