Kerala HC takes suo motu of shoving incident at Sabarimala

Thiruvananthapuram, January 17 (BPNS)

In the incident in which a Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) watcher misbehaved with devotees at the Sabarimala Sree Dharma Sastha Temple, the Kerala High Court has initiated suo motu proceedings.

The division bench, comprising Justices Anil K Narendran and PG Ajithkumar, suo motu impleaded Assistant Devaswom Commissioner, TDB, and Arunkumar S, Devaswom watcher, Manacaud division as additional respondents. The court further directed the TDB Secretary to place on record, explaining the facts, circumstances, and also the action, if any, taken against Arunkumar by January 23.

The case has been listed for further hearing on January 24.

It was on January 14 that the incident took place. As per the visuals that appeared in visual media, Arunkumar, who was posted on special duty at Sopanam, in front of Sreekovil, violently pushed the
devotees having darshan along the first row in front of Sreekovil.

Meanwhile, a report of the Chief Vigilance and Security Officer had tried to give clean chit to the watcher. The report stated that due to the pressure of the crowd from the flyover to the temple after ‘Deeparadhana’, there arose congestion and a direction was given to speed up the crowd
flow and in that process the Devaswom watcher pushed forward the devotees coming along the first row.

At the same time, the report also added that the watcher was relieved from duty at Sabarimala and sent back to his home station on the next day, that was on January 15.

The division bench, while considering the report of the Special Commissioner, had observed that for such misbehavior towards pilgrims, the Devaswom watcher had to be proceeded against, as per law.

In the report, the Special Commissioner surmised that the
body language and the facial expression of the Devaswom watcher, while shoving the pilgrims in front of Sreekovil of Sabarimala
Sannidhanam has to be deprecated in the strongest words.

Arunkumar who is the seventh respondent in the suo motu has also been asked to file an affidavit by January 23.