After announcing biennial judicial scrutiny of valuables of Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) recently, Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, on Wednesday, wrote a letter to High Court Chief Justice Ramesh Ranganathan urging him to appoint a sitting judge to take stock of jewellery of Lord Venkateswara.
Mr. Naidu, in his letter, said that he was constrained to bring to the Chief Justice’s notice that certain vested interests have triggered unwarranted unrest and baseless apprehensions in the minds of millions of devotees of Venkateswara. There were allegations of mismanagement/theft of jewellery and other invaluable assets of the Srivari temple in the print and electronic media, he said. Instances of maligning the temple management or the government regarding the conduct of affairs of the TTD in the past necessitated the appointment of the Justice Jagannadha Rao Commission in 2009 and the Justice Wadhwa Committee in 2011 for verification of the jewellery. Need has arisen again to dispel the fears and apprehensions of millions of devotees across the globe through “comprehensive verification” by a sitting judge of High Court, he said.
‘Sense of urgency’
The sensitivity of this issue reached alarming proportions and any amount of counter-justification that all is well either by TTD or the government is unable to provide solace to the public at large and devotees in particular.
“I am to request your good self to appoint a sitting High Court judge to take stock of the allegations, verify the records, inspect the jewellery/ornaments/assets, scrutinise the procedures in vogue, and place a report in public domain so as to bring a quietus to the issue at question as was done on earlier occasions,” he said.