By Ramesh Kandula
The Tirumala ghee controversy has generated more heat than light, largely because political claims have raced ahead of documentary evidence. Now that the Supreme Court–mandated CBI investigation has culminated in a 219-page chargesheet filed before the Nellore ACB court, there is no excuse for selective reading or convenient distortion. The document deserves to be read for what it says—and equally for what it stops short of saying.
Let us begin with the central claim that has polarised the debate: adulteration.
Adulteration Is Established. The Fraud Is Massive.
The CBI chargesheet leaves no ambiguity on one core issue—adulteration did take place. The ghee supplied to Tirumala was not pure dairy ghee. Laboratory findings, relied upon by the CBI, establish that the samples were primarily a mixture of vegetable oils and plant-origin fats, notably palm oil, palm stearin and palm kernel oil. In simple terms, milk fat was substituted with cheaper non-dairy inputs.
The agency goes further. It concludes that the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) was systematically cheated, and pegs the value of the fraud at around ₹250 crore. This is not a procedural lapse or a minor quality deviation; it is large-scale commercial deception involving suppliers, intermediaries and internal enablers.
So let us be clear: there is no “clean chit” in this case. Thirty-six accused, a voluminous chargesheet, and a categorical finding of fraud do not add up to exoneration—no matter how aggressively some political voices claim otherwise.
The Animal Fat Question: Probability, Not Certainty
Where the discourse becomes muddied is on the issue of animal fats.
Critics of N. Chandrababu Naidu have repeatedly claimed that his earlier statement—that animal fat may have been mixed—has been “proved false” by the CBI. That claim does not survive a careful reading of the chargesheet.
What the CBI actually says is nuanced and scientifically bounded. Based on tests conducted by the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) and the National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI), the report notes:
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The probability of detecting animal-origin fats such as tallow, lard or fish oil is very low.
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Cholesterol markers—typically associated with such fats—were absent in the tested samples.
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However, and this is critical, the limit of detection (LOD) for animal fat in these tests is 10%.
In plain language: if animal fat content was below 10%, these tests would not detect it. NDRI explicitly acknowledges this limitation. Therefore, the CBI correctly refrains from making a definitive claim either way. It neither confirms nor conclusively rules out the presence of animal fats.
This is not a loophole; it is scientific honesty. But it also means that claims of “CBI proved Chandrababu wrong” are factually false. The agency simply did not have the forensic basis to make a 100% determination on that specific point.
Who Is Charged—and Who Is Not
Perhaps the most troubling aspect of the chargesheet lies not in what is written, but in who is named.
The CBI has charged:
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Promoters of the supplying dairies (Bole Baba Dairy, AR Dairy, Vaishnavi Dairy),
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Middlemen who supplied adulterating ingredients,
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A long list of lower and middle-level TTD officials, including engineers, assistants and technical committee members,
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Several external dairy experts who were part of inspection and evaluation committees.
What stands out is who is absent.
Final approval authority for contracts of this magnitude—worth hundreds of crores—does not rest with junior engineers or technical committee members. It rests with the TTD Board, the Chairman, and the Executive Officer. Yet, no sitting or former top decision-makers have been chargesheeted.
The chargesheet itself records a crucial fact: as early as June 2022, samples sent to the CFTRI, Mysuru—on the instructions of then TTD Chairman Y. V. Subba Reddy—had flagged adulteration in ghee supplied by the same dairies. According to the CBI, these results were suppressed by a General Manager-level official and not escalated.
This raises an obvious question:
If the chairman ordered testing, was there no follow-up? Were the results never sought? Or were they deliberately ignored once known?
The CBI claims lack of conclusive evidence to prosecute at the top. That may be legally defensible. But institutionally, it leaves behind an uncomfortable vacuum.
Accountability Without Closure
To be fair, the CBI has recommended departmental action against certain senior officials and has formally communicated this to the state government. Transfers and administrative consequences may follow. But that is not the same as criminal accountability.
The result is an investigation that establishes fraud, deception and systemic failure, yet stops short of piercing the highest level of institutional responsibility. Whether this is due to evidentiary constraints or political caution is a matter of speculation—and speculation must remain just that.
The Bottom Line
Three conclusions emerge unambiguously:
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Adulteration and fraud are proven. There is no clean chit to anyone.
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Animal fat presence is not conclusively ruled out, due to technical detection limits, nor conclusively established.
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Accountability has been vertically truncated, ending at mid-level officials despite the scale of the scam.
For an institution as sacred and financially significant as TTD, this is not closure. It is a partial reckoning.
The chargesheet answers many questions—but it leaves the most important one hanging:
How did a ₹250-crore fraud occur without the knowledge, consent, or negligence of those at the very top?
Until that question is convincingly addressed, the Tirumala ghee case will remain less a closed chapter—and more an unresolved indictment of institutional governance.