Royal family takes umbrage at amicus curiae report

The trustee of the Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple in Thiruvananthapuram, Moolam Tirunal Rama Varma, and five members of the royal family of erstwhile Travancore on Tuesday took exception to the allegations against them in the report of amicus curiae Gopal Subramanium and urged the Supreme Court to ignore the report.

Senior counsel K.K. Venugopal, appearing for Rama Varma and senior counsel Harish Salve, who appeared for the interveners, told a Bench of Justices T.S. Thakur and Anil R. Dave that Mr. Subramanium went beyond his brief as amicus curiae and in his report he had made all sorts of allegations against the family.

Throughout the hearing there was a war of words between Mr. Venugopal and Mr. Subramanium and at one point the court observed that legal debate had turned out into a spiritual one. Justice Thakur asked Mr. Venugopal ,“are you arguing for removal of amicus curiae or for upkeep of the temple.”

As Mr. Venugopal was pointing out the inaccuracies in the report and how the amicus curiae had changed the rituals in the temple against the wishes of the Tantri , Mr. Subramanium offered to the Bench that he would withdraw from the case as he could not continue with such insinuations.

However, Justice Thakur made it clear to Mr. Subramanium that he should continue to assist the court. The five members of the royal family, Gowri Lakshmi Bai, Gowri Parvathy Bai, Rama Varma, Marthanda Varma and Adithya Varma, in their affidavit had questioned Mr. Subramaniam’s findings that there were financial irregularities in the running of the temple. They said the charges were baseless and that the family had not failed to perform its duties in the temple.

Mr. Venugopal also said the allegations that the offerings (‘kanikkai’) had not been accounted for by the family were unfounded.

Mr. Venugopal said the report had created tremendous amount of prejudice in the court. Senior counsel Harish Salve, appearing for the trustee’s elder sister said she wanted to implead in the case. The Bench told the counsel for the parties that the amicus curiae had given 129 recommendations and asked them to indicate through an affidavit in two weeks the recommendations which were acceptable to them and the court would consider each one of them on the next date of hearing on November 27.