File Your I-T Returns In Spite Of Relief From Return Filing Up To 5 Lakh

Source :Simpletaxindia:july 29.2011



With just two days left to file income tax returns, taxpayers falling in the Rs 5-lakh bracket and earning less than the Rs 10,000 limit, have the option of not filing their returns.


 However, there are a number of reasons why you should file.If you covered under exemption for return filing as your salary is less than 5 lakh then  you can file return return up to 31.03.2012


An Income Tax Return (ITR) receipt is an important document because it is more elaborate than Form 16 — the other important document for salaried individuals. Reason: Form 16 shows salary from only one employer and the tax deducted by it. Whereas, ITR also shows income from other sources also, including investments, which one might not have disclosed to the employer. In effect, is a more realistic depiction of the individual's monetary position.


If you have decided not to file returns on or before July 31, here’s why you should revisit your decision:


Borrowing: While applying for a home loan, many banks make do with your Form 16. But, according to industry experts, if you aren’t getting a loan or not as much as you want, then handing over the last three years of ITR receipts will help. The ITR gives a sense of the borrower’s total income and his/her ability to support the loan repayment.


Nihar Jambusaria, National Head – Tax Advisory Services, BDO India, says: “Home loans can get rejected if banks think your income cannot support it. Here, ITR can help, as your total income is stated there (Form 16 only has income from one employer).”


International travel: “When travelling abroad, consulates ask you to furnish ITR receipt of the last couple of years at the time of the visa interview,” says Homi Mistry, tax partner, Deloitte, Haskins and Sells.


Some embassies may ask for the last three years of ITR, while others may ask for the most recent certificate.


Experts suggest when travelling abroad, whether on a business trip or on a holiday, income-related proofs should be carried along, such as salary slip, Form 16 and ITR receipt. Consulates specify these requirements in most cases.


Government tender: Jambusaria says if you plan to start a business and you need to fill government tender for the same, you will need to show your tax return receipts of the previous five years.


However, this is not a law. This may vary according to the internal rules of the government department and the number of ITRs required may also vary. This again, is to show your financial status and whether you can support the payment obligation or not.


Self-employed: Businessmen, consultants and partners of firms do not get Form 16. And, hence, ITR becomes a must for such individuals, if their income exceeds the basic exemption limit of Rs 1.60 lakh. For any financial transactions, ITR will be their only proof of income and tax payment.


Last, if you have a refund due from the Income Tax Department, you will have to file returns, without which you will forgo the amount.

Indian Bank to raise $500 mn for overseas operations

Source : Daijiworld:IANS:Friday, July 29, 2011 6:27:44 PM (IST)

Chennai-based public sector Indian Bank has decided to raise up to $500 million loan shortly for its overseas operations, the bank's chairman said here Friday.

Speaking to reporters, chairman and managing director T.M.Bhasin said: "The bank board has approved raising up to $1 billion medium term loan. We have conducted the road shows. We will be raising anything between $350-$500 million in the first tranche."

About its utilisation, Bhasin said: "The loan funds will be used for funding our overseas branches in Sri Lanka and Singapore. Our advances there will go up to Rs.2,250 crore."
Speaking to IANS, executive director Rajeev Rishi said the bank plans to have a branch in Hong Kong and three more branches in Sri Lanka.

"We will have around six branches in Sri Lanka. India's assistance for the rehabilitation of Sri Lankan Tamils will be routed through our bank," he said.

Rishi said the bank is chalking out a new strategy for its merchant banking subsidiary while winding up its housing finance and mutual fund subsidiaries.

On the bank's plans for foray into life insurance sector, he said: "We are waiting for IRDA's (Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority) guidelines on bancassurance. Once that is finalised, we will look at options - taking a stake in a life insurance company or be just a corporate agent."

Indian Bank closed the first quarter of the fiscal 2011-12 with a net profit of Rs.406.9 crore and a total income of around Rs.3,030 crore as against Rs.368.14 crore and Rs.2,477 crore earned during the corresponding period of the previous year.

The bank's increase in net profit is largely due to reduction in provisions by Rs.167 crore to around Rs.176 crore during the first quarter as against the provision of around Rs.343 crore made during the corresponding period of the previous year.

Officials told IANS that the reduction in the provisions during the current year's first quarter is owing to reduced non-performing assets (NPAs).

According to Bhasin, the bank, during the period under review, posted a total business of around Rs.192,934 crore (advances Rs.82,509 crore, deposits Rs.110,424 crore) as against Rs.159,027 crore (advances Rs.68,027 crore, deposits Rs.91,000 crore) posted during the corresponding period of previous year.

He said the bank's net interest income rose by 13.9 percent during the period under review to touch Rs.1,030 crore.

Bhasin said the bank's gross NPA to gross advances ratio declined to 0.98 percent from 1.45 percent in 2010-2011.

The net NPA to net advances ratio too decreased to 0.51 percent from 0.76 percent.

HC directs bank to disburse education loan

Source : TNN Jul 29, 2011, 05.04am IST



CHENNAI: A final year student of an engineering college in the city was on Thursday given relief with the Madras high court directing the release of her educational loan halted in the third year of the course.


A petition filed by R Sahana of Rajalakshmi Engineering College said she had applied for an educational loan of 2.2 lakh for four years from the Oriental Bank of Commerce at 55,000 a year. While the prescribed fee was 98,000 a year, the petitioner would mobilise 43,000 herself.


Her parents were co-applicants for the loan as they had obtained a few other loans in their individual capacity for their business. As they defaulted in paying the loan, the bank stopped the educational loan for Sahana in the third year of her course, the petition said.

Inflation & interest rates: A double whammy

Source :Money life :R Balakrishnan:
Inflation is eroding investments and the central bank’s monetary policy regime is preventing money from flowing into avenues of growth 


Inflation is the biggest destroyer of wealth. 


If I had put aside a sum of Rs100, 10 years ago, I would have earned around 7%pa as returns. Today, I would have had around Rs200 in hand. Ten years ago, I could buy dal at under Rs20 a kg or buy a litre of petrol at under Rs25. 


Today, dal is close to Rs100 a kg and petrol is over Rs60 a litre—and climbing. Of course, vegetable and food prices have more than tripled over this time. In essence, what I saved 10 years ago is today worth less than half my original investment.


 Half of my ‘savings’ has been destroyed because I did not spend it. More important, my assumptions of 10 years ago, that what I put aside would suffice for me today, have gone terribly wrong. If I cannot earn additional income (10 years ago, my plan was to stop having to go to work at this stage in my life, presuming that my savings were enough), I have to scale down my expectations or sell off some other assets. 


Inflation is not going to come down anytime soon. To me, the biggest damage has been done because of the increase in interest rates on savings account deposits, by the RBI (Reserve Bank of India). It virtually amounts to the regulator giving up on inflation. I would, in its place, have reduced the savings account deposit rate to zero! 


Until a few years ago, savings account balances beyond Rs1 lakh would not earn interest on any excess amount invested beyond this cut-off level. Today, banks pay interest on the entire balance. The result of this move by the RBI is that people tend to create a higher benchmark in terms of expectation of returns. If the savings rate had been brought down to zero, not many (barring some vested interest groups) would have protested. 


At the same time, it would have had the magical effect of lowering people’s expectations. Today, the savings account interest rate has become a kind of base point of expectation. Naturally, to park money anywhere else, we need higher returns. If the savings interest rate were zero, our expectation of return from other instruments or avenues would have been lower.  


Similarly, the RBI has hiked interest rates across the board. Now, we are seeing 10-year instruments being floated with yields of 12%pa, and higher! It is not as if banks are flush with money and that RBI will reduce credit offtake due to this move.


 In fact, banks do not have enough money to lend. And a company will not stop borrowing for its regular needs simply because the interest rate has gone up by a couple of percentage points. In fact, due to lack of additional supplies coming in, competition is minimal in most industries.


 This gives companies the leeway to pass on the increased burden of higher interest rates to the buyer. Inflation gets worse due to this vicious cycle.


 What will get impacted is capital expenditure. Large projects will get postponed due to high interest rates. 


In this environment, the villain of the piece is retail lending. It continues to grow unabated. Increase of a couple of percentage points in interest rates has not deterred spending. The consumer durables and automobile industries are growing at record rates.


 Most of this growth is on account of credit purchases. Of course, it does help these industries, but these goods are virtually immune to price hikes in today’s environment of unfettered ambition and consumerism. Banks are continuing to grow this portfolio, unmindful of credit quality. The race for market share and the gambler-like urge to keep growing the retail ‘book’ has diverted the focus of banks to size rather than quality. 


Many banks and lenders have outsourced even the critical function of origination of loans to third parties. Obviously, this will result in mounting bad debts. I am seeing consumer portfolios that have gone bad, being sold at 10% (or lower) of the outstanding value to other banks or asset-reconstruction companies. 


Consumer activism and a benign regulatory attitude to defaulters have made it very easy for an individual to default—and not change his lifestyle in any way. Smart borrowers are using this aspect to run up loans, negotiate them after deliberate default and go on with their normal lives. I do not think that the scores from a credit bureau will have much impact in the near term, so long as it is used only as a pricing tool, rather than a denial of credit mechanism. 


Credit is a useful mechanism to bring buyers and sellers together. However, when the number of buyers is more than the sellers, credit will only serve as a tool to push prices up. As the old saying goes, when credit has to be ‘sold’, it will end up as a bad debt.


This cycle will end either by supply catching up with demand or by prices going up to such an extent that, at some point, buyers will vanish, or their numbers will shrink dramatically. Supply does not look like it is going to catch up in a hurry. What is most likely is that we will go through a phase of rising prices. 


To me, this is scary. We will see apparent prosperity, without increase in the number of jobs. We will see fixed-income earners (like pensioners or retired persons) struggle to make ends meet. Income disparities will rise to levels not seen before. Rising interest rates cannot benefit all. Only to those with continuing inflow of money will rising interest rates be of some gain. If I have already locked in my money, I cannot take advantage of rising interest rates. Even if I go through the mutual fund route, I will not gain. As interest rates rise, we will see the prices of assets fall. 


So what do we do? One assumption I would like to make is that the RBI will stop its misguided driving-up of interest rates sooner rather than later. I will accept that inflation in India is going to have a run rate of 8% to 10% annually, given the fact that our combined state and central fiscal deficits will remain in double digits and the base savings rate interest has been raised to 4%. 


I will put in as much of my savings in short-term assets as possible. I will wait for a stock market correction to add to my equities portfolio. But to what extent? Maybe another 20% fall in market indices from this point—or the market remaining at the same levels two years down the road (assuming that average profit growth of listed companies would still be around 15%pa). 


I’ll postpone most of my purchases of consumer durables and push back the buying of my second home. In fact, I will follow the Shakespearean dictum of ‘neither a lender nor a borrower be’. I would look out for fixed deposits or bonds to park some of my money. Liquid funds are back in fashion, with decent returns. I will avoid income funds until I am sure that the RBI is done with jacking up interest rates. 


What I have outlined is perhaps a pessimistic outlook. However, if I can be prepared for this, I can only have positive surprises. I am still not so pessimistic as to believe that we will go all the way to hyperinflation or a severe bout of stagflation. I bank on domestic entrepreneurs to fight their way out of this, rather than expect the Indian government to do anything constructive to correct the situation. Politicians are busy fighting their survival battles... and, unfortunately, economics has no place in that.


The author can be reached at balakrishnanr@gmail.com

President Pratibha Patil declares assets of Rs 2.5 crore on official website

 |  

Source :Money Life Digital team :July 25,2011 02:54 pm

The list of assets has been put up after the chief information officer, ruling on an RTI application, said that it would set a good example if the president declared her wealth and property...


Mrs Pratibha Patil, the President of India, owns assets totally valued at almost Rs2.5 crore, according to information put up on the president's official website. Mrs Patil has voluntarily put up a list of her wealth and property as of 31 March 2011. The information has been put up following a ruling by the chief information officer (CIC) in favour of an RTI activist who sought this information. 


On 21st July, in response to a query by Right to Information (RTI) activist Subhas Agrawal, the public information officer at the president's secretariat said that the list of assets had been put up on the president's website. The list mentions a house, a farmhouse, plots of agricultural land, market investments bank balance and other movable assets, totally worth about Rs2.5 crore. 


Going by the information, Ms Patil owns a lot less than Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalitha whose net worth is Rs51 crore and her predecessor M Karunanidhi who had declared net assets worth Rs41 crore. Both had declared these figures when filing nominations for the state elections in May. Chief Justice of India SH Kapadia has listed assets that he owns and that of his wife to be worth Rs1.09 crore. Home Minister Mr P Chidambaram declared in 2009 that he and his wife have assets totally worth more than Rs20 crore.  


Mr Agrawal had asked for details of the wealth and assets owned bypresident and her family members in August last year. But the information was twice denied to him by the public information officer at the president's secretariat, saying the information was not available, and Mr Agrawal went in appeal. He was also told that there is not legal obligation for the president to publicly declare her wealth. 


During the hearing, the CIC said that the president's relatives are private individuals and hence, do not come under the ambit of the RTI Act. However, if the president voluntarily declares her assets, like otherministers and judges, it would set a good example. 


The CIC made this announcement on 15th June. "The president may set a good example in transparency which others could follow. The commission cannot pass any direction in this regard, as it does not come within the commission's powers as mandated under the RTI Act." Now, Ms Patil has given the information that has been put up on the official website. However, since this is not mandatory, it will have to be seen whether here successor follows her "good example". 


The disclosure of assets has been a bone of contention among administrators of the country. The Election Commissioner, Information Commissioner and Supreme Court judges have all disclosed their assets voluntarily. Vice-president Hamid Ansari has reportedly expressed a similar desire. However, many  Parliamentarians are opposed to the idea. Both the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha secretariats have refused to put such details of parliamentarians on the website, quoting rules. 


Mr Agrawal says, "Instead of such voluntary disclosures, it should be made a rule for all members of the legislature, the judiciary and the bureaucracy (at least of the level of under secretary and above) to declare details of their assets and wealth on the respective websites of public authorities"

Voluntary disclosures have sometimes also produced surprises. The Supreme Court's only woman judge Gyan Sudha Mishra shocked the country by listing her two daughters as 'liabilities'. People were outraged when Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati declared assets worth Rs86 crore, which was described as just the tip of the iceberg, given here penchant for garlands of cash, diamond jewellery and now allegations of land hoarding. 

The most hilarious declaration was made by former chief minister of West Bengal, Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee prior to the state elections; he stated that he had no house, no car, no bank balance and only Rs5,000 cash in hand, whereas his wife was worth Rs46 lakh. This is some progress for Mr Bhattacharjee, since 2006, when he declared that he had no cash in hand.

SC refuses to intervene in Kasturi & Sons dispute

Source :livemint:Nikhil Kanekal & Amritha Venketakrishnan:
Mon, Jul 18 2011. 6:32 PM IST



 The Supreme Court on Monday refused to intervene in the family dispute between the shareholders of Kasturi & Sons, the publisher of The Hindu. on the issue of editorial succession.


In a move that should strengthen the hand of the company’s editor-in-chief N. Ram, the Supreme Court dismissed the special leave petition filed by board members N. Ravi, N. Murali and Malini Parthasarthy and did not restrain the company from making changes in the management of the newspaper, including the apppointment of a non-family member as editor.


In May, the Company Law Board ruled against the proposed appointment ofThe Hindu’s national bureau chief Siddharth Varadarajan as editor and the removal of family members from the editorial posts. This new structure was supported by seven of the 12 members of the board.
Ram, leading the majority of the board that supported the supporting changes, subsequently appealed to the Madras high court, which ruled in his favour on 1 July. Soon after, the opposing faction of editor N. Ravi, managing director N. Murali (Ram’s brothers) and executive editor Malini Parthasarathy filed a special leave petition (SLP) with the Supreme Court against the high court judgment.


Ram was challenged under company law for alleged oppression and mismanagement.
Ravi, Murali and Malini, who were present at the hearing, found themselves on weak procedural ground as a bench led by Chief Justice S. H. Kapadia asked their counsel why they had not filed a civil suit.


“Why have you not filed a suit? These prayers can’t come under (sections) 397, 398 (of the Companies Act, 1956),” said Justice Kapadia.


The court then dismissed the petition saying, “We see no need to interfere at this stage.”
The court also referred the main dispute back to the Company Law Board in Chennai to be heard daily from the second week of August -- a move that will bring some amount of relief to the minority faction.


“The Supreme Court has dismissed the petition that had alleged oppression and mismanagement,” Ram said via telephone. “I am very happy about this order from the Supreme Court for which we have great respect and we will go forward and professionalize and contemporarise as per the decision taken by the clear majority of the board.”


Murali said Varadarajan will likely be appointed as editor at Wednesday’s board meeting. But Ravi and Malini are unlikely to be removed from their positions immediately, he added.
“We will have to see what happens as the CLB hearing will be day to day,” Murali said. “Removal of family members is not on the agenda for the board meeting. Only Siddharth’s appointment is.”


At the hearing, counsels for the petitioners made impassioned pleas before the bench on how the newspaper had kept the position of the editor within the family for over a century -- as a matter of tradition. They argued that there was no need to appoint an “outsider” to this position as there were enough well qualified professionals within the family.


“What is in the best interest of the company? The family members holding these functions are extremely well qualified. You will not find anyone more well qualified,” said senior lawyer Shyam Divan to the bench.


Mukul Rohatgi, who also appeared for Ravi’s side, argued: “Unfortunately, they have suddenly decided that an outsider who is very, very junior -- five rungs junior -- will guide the philosophy of the paper.” Abhishek Singhvi contended that “it is very doubtful if you can bring fundamental changes to the basic structure of the company without a special resolution.”


The bench did not seem convinced by these arguments. “What is the legal ground of challenge? If you go on law there are difficulties.” said Chief Justice Kapadia. “Under the articles of association should the editorial panel be set up by the owners or the editor-in-chief?” he asked. However, before dismissing the petitions the bench clarified that neither its observations, nor the High Court’s should influence CLB when it hears the case.

Man who got Sree Padmanabha Swamy temple riches revealed dies

source:TNN Jul 18, 2011, 02.59am IST

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Advocate TP Sunderarajan, the 1964-batch IPS officer whose legal intervention led to the stock-taking of Sree Padmanabha Swamy temple's colossal assets, died on Sunday, spurring talks of "divine retribution" among the believers.

The 70-year-old passed away at about 12.45am at his brother's home around 30 metres from the shrine's west entrance. 

A family source said Sunderarajan, who was otherwise in good health, was uneasy and feverish for the last two days.

 On Saturday evening, he complained of wheezing and said he would not last until Sunday morning.

 He refused to take any medicine or go to a hospital. "At about 12.45am on Sunday, he said he wanted to go to the toilet, but collapsed before he could step in," a family source said.

While some said his sudden death was divine retribution, others asserted he was not put through any suffering of old age. 

Stories of how tragedy had befallen those who entered the shrine, too, did the rounds during the day, but these could not be confirmed.

Source :Truthdive :

July 18, 2011 – 9:13 pm  By Ayyappa Prasad 

Thiruvanthapuram,July 18: The remains of the man who petitioned the Supreme Court for an inventory of Sri Padmanabha Swamy temple assets was cremated. Media persons were the only people who gathered to report the `event’ to immediate relatives and a priest of nearby temple.

The neighbours of the `agraharam’ (place where only Brahmins stay) where T P Sundarajan the 70- year old advocate and chronic bachelor lived stayed away from the funeral since they hated him for leading the cops and court officials to enter the temple to open the vaults.

Unanimously all of the residents including the youngsters felt that the sanctity of the temple was gone by the adamant stance of the advocate who had benefitted from the largesse of the Royal family.

The body was cremated at Puthankotta where Brahmins are cremated at the place run by Brahmin association at Karmana in the city. 

This was where actor Srividya was cremated.

The nephew of Sunderajan who is also an advocate said that he would continue the fight of his uncle and that he died as a happy man of having achieved his goal.

 The neighbours feel that he invited the wrath of the deity even though he himself used to visit the temple at least five times. His food was the nivedyam (food offered to deity and then distributed to devotees).

He was living at Saranagathi, West Fort, near the ancient temple.Sundararajan had been running of high fever for the past two days, family sources said.

He died at 12.45 am on Sunday. 

The cremation was held later in the day.Sundararajan,a bachelor, had come into spotlight after moving the Supreme Court that the wealth of the famed temple should be assessed.

Sundararajan belonged to the 1964 batch of IPS officers.Heserved in the CBI during Indira Gandhi’s tenure as PM.

Later,he put in his papers and returned home to care for his ailing father T K Padmanabha Iyer.

Source:The New Indian Express: Jul 18, 2011 at 11:05am IST

The alley that led to the western entrance of the Sree Padmanabha Swamy Temple looked deserted on Sunday afternoon, except for a few vehicles, including those that had come to the nearby police control room. 

But only a few moments ago, the alley was crowded with people and the media who had thronged the place hearing about the demise of the controversial man who was instrumental in bringing out the greatest hidden wealth that the country has ever seen; advocate T P Sundararajan.

Sundararajan, who died around 12.45 am on Sunday, was cremated with religious ceremonies at the crematorium at Puthankotta, near Manacaud, around 12.30 pm.

The crowd that gathered outside his residence disappeared soon after his body was taken to the crematorium. 

An unmoved priest at a small temple adjacent to Sundararajan’s residence piously performed the rituals, even while the body was being taken to the crematorium. 

Talking to City Express, the neighbours of the former IPS officer took the opportunity to vent out their anger against him for calling in the attention of the whole world to the temple’s immense wealth. Many believed that it was the wrath of the Lord that Sundararajan invited through his legal ventures that had brought about his unexpected demise.

"His fate was foretold,’’ was the response of Sundaram, a typist living in the same ‘Agraharam’. ‘’We all knew that that there was immense wealth stored in the chambers inside the temple. But his a adamant stand has put the safety of the wealth in uncertainty. The sanctity of the temple was also lost after police and armed personnel were deployed in and around the temple,’’ he said.

His neighbours remember him as an extremely devout man who would visit the temple four or five times a day. ‘’He was a man who would go to the time five times daily. He subsisted on the ‘nivedyam’ offered by the temple,’’ says Giri Neelakantan, a neighbour.

Hari, an employee at a new generation bank, residing right opposite to the residence of Sundararajan, said that he was fit as a fiddle until a few days before his death, implying the possibility of divine intervention in his death.

However, Sundararajan’s family rubbished all such claims. 

The advocate’s nephew, also named Sundararajan, told City Express that his uncle was ailing from fever for the past two days.

The repeated requests of the family to move him to a hospital was dismissed by the former Supreme Court advocate.

"He has left this world with extreme gratification, as his efforts had yielded results,’’ he added.

The ‘sanchayanam’ ceremony of Sundararajan will be held on Monday.

Source:The New Indian Express: Jul 19, 2011 at 09:41am IST

The unexpected death of Advocate T P Sunder Rajan seems to have intensified the demand for holding a ‘Deva Prasnam’ before opening the ‘B vault’ in the Padmanabha Swamy Temple. 

The demand raised by the Travancore royal family before the Supreme Court found new supporters on Sunday and Monday.

�‘’All the property of the temple belongs to Lord Padmanabha. Before touching those assets, we must obtain the permission of the Lord. For that the only way is to conduct a ‘deva prasnam’,’’ said Gopalakrishnan Potty, former ‘Periya Nambi’ of the temple. He said gold was one of the favourite offerings of the Lord and that might be how so much gold and jewels accumulated in the temple. Devotees who know about the preference of the Lord, had placed gold and jewels as their offering on his feet.

�Vasthu acharya K Muraleedharan Nair, who is the president of Vasthu Sasthra Vigjana Peedam, said it would be better if those who venture out to open the vaults do a rethink. ‘’It is ideal that we keep the B vault locked. The treasures stored in that vault, which is below the Head of the deity, are protected by taming micro natural forces. Tantric experts who kept it safe their might have done this. If one dares to open that vault, it will trigger a series of troubles,’’ warned Nair.

�‘’It will be foolish to open the lock of B vault using a gas cutter,’’ he added. �

�Those who listed the bad omens that became visible after the whole episode began said the mother of one of the observers died and the leg of another observer got injured after the operation began. ‘’Everybody in the temple knows this old story of the ill fate of the three persons who ventured to open one of the vaults a few years ago. All of them died within months,’’ said Nair.

�According to him, the concept of ‘Perumal (the Emperor)’ is what takes Padmanabha Swamy, Tirupathi Venkitachalapathi and Sree Ranganathan to a different league. Emperors are used to be fond of gold and jewels and so do Gods who take the Perumal form. ‘’There is an invaluable treasure of jewels kept inside the Sree Ranga temple in Tamil Nadu. It is an offering by the Chola and Chera kings,’’ said Nair. Same is the case with Tirumala Tirupathi Devasthanam.

�There are interesting anecdotes about Lord Padmanabha’s penchant for gold.

‘’One day I placed a new gold ring given by a devotee at the feet of the deity for ‘pooja’. While I was doing ‘pooja’, it disappeared. I frantically searched for it, but couldn’t find it anywhere. I broke down as my integrity would have been questioned by the devotee. I prayed hard and wept on His feet. After some time, the ring came back to the spot where I had originally placed it,’’ said a priest who had earlier served at the temple.

�Old people around the Fort recall myths such as opening the B vault would prove disastrous as it would trigger a flood.

Though rationalists claim that these myths were planted as deterrents to protect the wealth of the temple, believers stick on to them.