Kerala High Court Flags ‘Financial Indiscipline’ In Sabarimala Global Ayyappa Meet Audit

The Kerala High Court has raised serious concerns over “prima facie financial indiscipline” within the Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) following an audit of the Sabarimala Global Ayyappa Meet held on September 20, 2025. The court’s scrutiny comes after a special commissioner submitted the audit report that highlighted a string of irregularities.

Prior to the event at Pampa, the High Court had said that the expenses for the global meet should be covered through sponsors. The Travancore Devaswom Board had taken Rs 2 crore from the Devaswom Board general fund and was told that the amount will be kept back once the sponsorship comes in. The audit report states that 2 crore has so far not been kept back.

Auditing the Irregularities

The audit report, submitted by the Sabarimala

Special Commissioner, points to several discrepancies.

Lack of Competitive Bidding: The execution of works was entrusted to the Indian Institute of Infrastructure and Construction (IIIC) without any tender process or competitive bidding.

The invoices received from IIIC and its subcontractors lacked proper classification of expenditure under specific
accounting heads, making it impossible to verify ledger-wise expenditure solely on the basis of such invoices.

Vanishing Assets: While the Bill of Quantity (BOQ) accounted for 150 beds, only 100 were recorded in the Joint Measurement Sheets (JMS), leaving 50 beds (valued at Rs 1,73,000) completely unaccounted for.

While 15 centre table units were mentioned in BOQ, 19 units were certified in the JMS, with 15 shown as “extra,” without any clear justification.

Phantom Works: A sum of Rs 2,80,000 for cabling and panel board works appeared in the bill but remained uncertified in the measurement sheets.

Prasadam Accounting: The monetary value of the Prasadam distributed to participants of the Global Ayyappa Meet was never reflected in the event’s official books of account.

Tax and Transparency Failures

Beyond the missing inventory, the TDB faces a significant shortfall in tax reconciliation. While the board is reportedly entitled to Rs 1.07 crore in GST input tax credit, only Rs 45.76 lakh has been reflected in the GSTR-2B.

The High Court has now demanded a detailed explanation from the Travancore Devaswom Board.