Chennai: Fearing arrest by Idol Wing team the TVS Motor Company Chairman, Venu Srinivasan has approached the Madras high court seeking anticipatory bail. In the advance bail petition filed by Venu Srinivasan, before the special division bench of comprising Justices R. Mahadevan and PD Audikesavlu, has submitted that he apprehends arrest by CB-CID - Idol Wing team in connection with a case filed alleging irregularities in renovation of Sri Kapaleeswarar temple, Mylapore.
It may be noted that on August 7, during the hearing of a plea moved by advocate ‘Elephant’ Rajendaran challenging the government order transferring the idol theft cases to CBI before the special bench, the judges asked Rajendran why he had arrayed Venu Srinivasan as a respondent in his plea. Rajendran replied that there is an FIR pending against Srinivasan in connection with complaints of idol theft from Kapaleeswarar temple.
The chairman stated that the particular averment made by Rajendaran have been widely circulated in social media and he understood that an FIR had been registered with the Mylapore police and later transferred to the idol wing headed by IG Pon Manickavel.
Stating that he is innocent, the chairman said, during 2004, the government wanted to conduct kumbhabhishekam at various temples in the state and constituted Koil Thiruppani Committee. He was made as a member of the committee. Kumbhabhishekam was performed at various temples including Sri Kapaleeswarar temple.
Such committee was formed in each of the temples under HR and CE to look after the execution of the works. The renovation works, includes among others, sanadhis, gopurams and flooring, were taken up. He spent Rs 70 lakh from his personal fund.
Chairman of Apollo Hospitals was also one of the committee members and mainly supervised and organized the renovation and subsequent consecration work in 2004. Other than spending Rs 70 lakh from his personal fund, he had not other connection with the temple, he said.
Further, the chairman stated that he was also appointed as chairman of Board of Trustees of Srirangam temple and consecration was performed in 2015. He spent Rs 25 crore for renovation of the entire temple complex. Due to renovation and restoration work carried out at Sri Ranganathaswamy Temple in Srirangam, it had won the Unesco Asia Pacific Award of Merit 2017 for cultural heritage conservation.
The chairman said he has a private trust funded by him and his company which had undertaken renovation of 100 temples in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala.
In view of serious allegation made in a FIR registered against him, he has reasonable apprehension that it became necessary to file the anticipatory bail petition before the court. The matter will come up for hearing before the special bench of the HC shortly.
