The Madras High Court has set aside the conviction and two-year sentence imposed on a temple executive officer for having allegedly demanded and received monthly ‘mamool’ (protection money) from the priests to avoid taking disciplinary action against them.
Justice M. Nirmal Kumar held that the Vigilance and Anti Corruption sleuths had failed to prove the charges levelled against T. Vijayakumar, who had served as the EO of the Sri Raja Ganapathy Temple in Salem in 2009, and therefore he was entitled to be acquitted of all charges.
Allowing his appeal pending in the High Court since 2016, the judge agreed with the appellant’s counsel M. Mohamed Riyaz that it would not be safe to confirm the conviction when the only direct witness Saravana Gurukkal, also the complainant in the case, had died during trial.
Though the complainant could not be examined, the prosecution could have proved its case through circumstantial evidence but, unfortunately, it failed to do so, the judge remarked. He refused to accept the evidence of other priests because they had an axe to grind.
“The evidences of PW5 to PW8, who were Gurukals in the temple, are to be taken with a pinch of salt since they had grudge against the appellant,” the judge said and pointed out that the appellant had issued memo to one of them for letting his relative perform puja inside the sanctum sanctorum.
Further, the judge took note that the appellant had also warned the priests of disciplinary action when they indulged in a sit-in protest objecting to engagement of temporary priests, by the chairman of the board of trustees, to manage the crowd on Vinayagar Chaturthi day in 2009.
“It is to be seen that the appellant, while serving earlier in Uppuliyappan Temple in Kumbakonam, had taken stringent action against Gurukals for revenue seepage. Likewise, in the present temple, he planned to introduce tickets for abhishekam and various pujas which would have definitely affected the interest of the complainant and PW5 to PW8,” the judge wrote.
He said, the allegation of the priests that the appellant demanded monthly ‘mamool’ of ₹10,000 from their ‘Thattu Kanikkaikai’ (money offered by devotees to the priests) could not be relied upon since they had a strong motive against the appellant.
