Rich but filthy: Apex court orders clean-up at Kerala's iconic temple

NEW DELHI: The Padmanabhaswamy temple in Thiruvananthapuram, with an estimated wealth of Rs 1 lakh crore, was wallowing in filth due to mismanagement and lack of upkeep, amicus curiae Gopal Subramaniam told the Supreme Court on Monday .

He was joined by senior advocates C S Vaidyanathan and KK Venugopal who informed a bench of Chief Justice J S Khehar and Justices D Y Chandrachud and Sanjay Kishan Kaul that the temple had two tanks for priests to bathe before car rying out the daily rituals.

“The sewer of the nearby locality empties into these two tanks, which are otherwise also filled with filth and moss. This requires urgent cleaning if the temple is to re gain its satvik (pure) surroundings,“ Subramaniam told the bench. He said what use was the temple's riches if the principal deity was in urgent need of restoration and the roof of the sanctum sanctorum required major repair.

The bench asked Kerala Water Authority (KWA) to undertake repair of sewer lines in the locality to stop discharge into the temple tanks. Though Kerala government's counsel Joydeep Gupta said the work could take up to four months, the bench ordered that it must be completed by May 15. It asked KWA to get the work done by itself without inviting tender. On restoration of the main deity , repair of the sanctum sanctorum roof and cleaning of the two tanks, the bench asked the temple administration headed by the district judge to invite expression of intent from experts in traditional Kerala method of restoration work and place them before the apex court on or before April 17 for finalisation of work allocation.

The amicus had two years ago presented a report to the SC detailing the sorry state of affairs in the temple and said the tanks were so dirty that priests who took a dip there had developed skin rashes.