PROBE ORDERED INTO MISSING KEYS OF JAGANNATH TEMPLE’S TREASURY

Days after the keys to the treasury of the 12th century Jagannath temple went missing, triggering a public outrage, Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik on Monday ordered a judicial probe into the disappearance. The inquiry will be conducted by a retired high court judge.

BHUBANESWAR: Days after the keys to the treasury of the 12th century Jagannath temple went missing, triggering a public outrage, Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik on Monday ordered a judicial probe into the disappearance.

“The inquiry will be conducted by a retired Orissa high court judge with a focus on the circumstances that led to the disappearance of the Ratna Bhandar (treasury) keys in next three months,” said the chief minister, after holding discussions with law minister Pratap Jena and chief administrator of Sri Jagannath Temple Administration PK Jena.

The disappearance of the keys to the treasury of the richest temple in Odisha came to light during a meeting of the temple’s management committee soon after the court-mandated inspection of the Ratna Bhandar on April 4 by a 16-member team.

Though the team inspected the outer chamber of the Ratna Bhandar and noted the cracks on its roof, it could not enter the inner chamber.

This was because the keys given to them by the temple administration did not match the locks. As per norms, after every use the keys to the temple treasury are handed over to the district collector who then deposits them in the district treasury. However, as it now turns out, there is no record of any receipt of keys either in the government treasury or with the collector ever since the last inspection in the 1980s. The disappearance became controversial after Puri Shankaracharya Swami Nischalananda Saraswati of Govardhan Peeth on Sunday demanded a probe into the case.