Four arrested in Tirupati laddu ghee adulteration case
The Andhra Pradesh CM had alleged that animal fat and substandard ingredients were used to make the prasadam at the temple under the previous state government.
Four persons have been arrested by the Central Bureau Of Investigation-led Special Investigation Team in connection with the alleged adulteration of the ghee used in the laddus offered as prasadam at Tirupati’s Sri Venkateswara temple, PTI reported on Monday.
The SIT investigation revealed violations in the supply of ghee, which led to the arrests, PTI quoted an unidentified official as saying.
The individuals were identified by the official as Vipin Jain and Pomil Jain, former directors of the Bhole Baba Dairy, Apoorva Chawda from Vaishnavi Dairy and Raju Rajasekharan from AR Dairy.
Vaishnavi Dairy officials allegedly secured contracts through AR Dairy to supply ghee to the temple and created fake records to manipulate the tender process, the official said.
The investigators found that Vaishnavi Dairy falsely claimed to source the ghee from Bhole Baba Dairy, which lacked the capacity to meet the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam Board’s demand, PTI reported.
The board manages the Tirupati temple.
In September, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu had claimed that substandard ingredients and animal fat were used to make the prasadam when the YSR Congress Party was in power in the state. The YS Jagan Mohan Reddy-led YSR Congress Party lost power in the Assembly elections that concluded in early June.
In October, the Supreme Court ordered the formation of an SIT to investigate the allegations by the Andhra Pradesh government that the previous administration had used ghee adulterated with animal fat to prepare laddus at the Tirupati temple.
The court had directed that the investigating team will have two officers from the CBI, two from the Andhra Pradesh Police and one senior official from the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India. It had also said that the probe will be carried out under the supervision of the CBI director.
The central investigative agency had set up the five-member SIT in November.
The Supreme Court had also questioned the propriety of Naidu’s claims, which were made despite the matter being under investigation by the temple authorities.
The bench had verbally observed that according to the laboratory reports it had seen, the ghee samples tested for contamination came from rejected batches that were not used to make laddus.
