Ashraf Padanna /Thiruvananthapuram


Sundararajan
The lawyer whose long legal battle led to opening of the secret underground vaults of a historic temple here containing treasure, believed to be worth more than $22bn and accumulated over centuries, is no more.
TP Sundararajan, 70, was down with fever and chest infection since Thursday but he refused to be shifted to a hospital or take his medication, his relatives said. A bachelor who spent most of his later life offering prayers at the temple, he died at 12.45 am.
The relatives said he refused to take medicines saying that his mission was over and his life was in the hands of Lord Padmanabha, the presiding deity of the Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple in the Kerala state capital where the treasures were unearthed.
There were protests by some devotees at his residence on the temple premises after the vaults were opened and the temple authorities issued a notice asking him to vacate the temple’s property in the Brahmin settlement. They said he was under severe stress and he suffered a stroke past midnight.
A bachelor, he was living near the temple located in the heart of the city since his voluntary retirement from India’s Intelligence Bureau in 1974 after ten years of service as an Indian Police Service (IPS) officer and was since practicing as a lawyer.
He was considered a close confidant of erstwhile Maharajah Sree Chithira Thirunal Balarama Varma, who was stripped off all powers and privileges by a law enacted in India’s Parliament in 1971. He succeeded his father as the royal family’s legal advisor.
He however fell out with the royal family over the administration of the temple after the former king’s death in 1991 and engaged in a long legal battle since 1999 saying the trust headed by the present maharajah Uthradam Thirunal Marthanda Varma was incapable of protecting the temple’s wealth.
On January 31, the High Court in Kerala asked the provincial government to take over the administration of the temple from the royal custodians and catalogue the hidden treasures as there was no kingdom and any king anymore. It also directed the state to form a trust for its administration.
The titular maharajah then moved the Supreme Court against this and the apex court allowed an interim stay on execution of the lower court order. It also appointed a seven-member panel to prepare an inventory of the treasures contained in six vaults, two of them last opened 136 years back.
The court halted opening of the last and most crucial vault early this month expressing security concerns as the panel had found it difficult to enter the cellar and because the treasure was receiving enormous publicity. The court is to give its verdict on further searches on Friday.
Sundararajan was a member of the search panel and a respondent in the case that is before the supreme court. His relatives said one of them will represent him in the court and in the panel. He was living with his sister and nephew.