CBI suspects role of TTD ‘insiders’ in laddu ghee adulteration case

Tirupati: The CBI-led special investigation team is now looking at the role of people within the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) in the laddu ghee adulteration case.
CBI has arrested four accused — R Rajasekharan (AR dairy, Tamil Nadu), Pomil Jain and Vipin Jain (Bhole Baba dairy, Uttarakhand) and Apurva Vinaykanth Chavda (Vyshnavi dairy, Panabaka, AP) — in connection with the case so far. All four were granted police custody for five days by a local court on Thursday.
In its remand report, CBI mentioned the alleged nexus between AR dairy, Vyshnavi dairy, and Bhole Baba dairy and how they managed to bag the ghee supply tenders floated by the TTD last year.
It suspects some TTD officials may have pledged their support to the ghee contractors for supply of substandard and adulterated ghee.
The Supreme Court-mandated SIT has so far unravelled several aspects in the case and has exposed numerous flaws in TTD's tendering processes and quality control parameters, which the ghee contractors took advantage of and went on supplying substandard and adulterated ghee to the temple between 2019 and 2024.
As ghee is the main ingredient used in the preparation of Tirumala laddus, TTD has a huge requirement of ghee on a daily basis. Approximately 4 to 5 lakh laddus are prepared and distributed to devotees every day. The daily average requirement of ghee is about 15,000 kg, for which TTD follows the procedure of procuring Agmark special grade ghee in tankers for a period of six months in advance in three modules.
In the first module, 20 lakh kg of ghee is procured from national dairies, about 10 lakh kg is procured from dairies located within 1,500 km radius from Tirumala in the second module, while about 5 lakh kg is procured from dairies located within Andhra Pradesh.
Pomil Jain and Vipin Jain, the promoters of Uttarakhand-based Bhole Baba dairy, are said to be the key players in the laddu ghee adulteration case. The CBI has found that the dairy directly supplied ghee to TTD from 2019, and despite their stocks getting rejected several times due to substandard quality, and subsequent disqualification after checks by TTD officials revealed their manufacturing practices were not up to required standards, they continued to supply ghee through indirect means. The SIT investigation found that Bhole Baba dairy kept supplying ghee to TTD in tins and tankers in the name of Vyshnavi dairy, which never produced a single kg of ghee but procured its entire requirement from Bhole Baba dairy on a 2-3% commission basis. A local commission agent and a TTD liaison, identified as PP Srinivasan, was the one who helped Bhole Baba and Vyshnavi dairies get ghee supply contracts from TTD by submitting fake and fictitious documents.
After they were disqualified by TTD in 2022, Pomil Jain and Vipin Jain purchased shares of Punabaka-based Vyshnavi dairy and became the firm's directors. Apurva Chavda, one of the directors of Vyshnavi dairy, then helped them connect with MD of Tamil Nadu-based AR dairy Rajasekharan, who agreed to be a part of their modus operandi when TTD called for fresh e-tenders for ghee supply in March 2024. After successfully bagging the contract, AR dairy procured ghee from Vyshnavi dairy, which in turn procured the same from Bhole Baba dairy and the same was sent in four tankers to TTD on June 12, 20, 25, and July 4 last year.
This ghee was used in the preparation of the sacred laddu prasadam after they ‘passed' the in-house tests carried out by TTD.