T’puram: Former Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) president P S Prasanth on Monday denied any role in the alleged conspiracy in the Sabarimala gold heist case and said he would challenge the proceedings legally after the high court directed the special investigation team (SIT) to proceed with the probe by arraigning him as one of the accused.Prasanth said he had no prior knowledge of the alleged theft or the persons involved. He said the devaswom board that he headed assumed office only in Nov 2023 and that there was no file relating to the case before TDB at the time. “I had no prior knowledge about any of this,” he said.Prasanth said he came to know about Govardhan and Pankaj Bhandari only after the alleged incident surfaced in the media. He added that he had met prime accused Unnikrishnan Potti only once and had spoken to him over the phone only four or five times thereafter.“Those phone calls lasted barely a minute each. Where is the scope for any conspiracy in all this?” he asked.Rejecting allegations that TDB had attempted to suppress evidence, Prasanth said the board itself had sought production of the relevant files before the court.“If we had anything to hide, would we have asked for those files to be produced before the court? We have nothing to conceal,” he said.Prasanth said he would face the case through legal means.
