The ruling, delivered by a Division Bench comprising Justice Dr. A.K. Jayasankaran Nambiar and Justice A.K. Preetha, allowed an appeal filed by the Union President and board office-bearers (represented by Senior Advocate Renjith Thampan and Advocate P.C. Sasidharan), overturning an earlier single-bench verdict that had upheld the state’s intervention. The dispute originated when the Director of the Dairy Development Department dissolved the TRCMPU managing committee and installed an interim administrative committee, citing alleged procedural and distribution irregularities regarding ghee supplied for sacred rituals (prasadam and abhishekam) at the Sabarimala temple.

Following the state’s administrative takeover, Milma leadership mounted a detailed defense of its supply chain protocols and laboratory certifications. Milma Chairman K.S. Mani confirmed that the cooperative federation supplied only certified, premium-grade milk fat to the Travancore Devaswom Board, meeting all statutory standards under the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI).

Mani explained that the ghee supplied to the hilltop pilgrimage shrine was packaged in fully hermetically sealed 15-kilogram commercial tins, rendering transit tampering or adulteration impossible within the cooperative’s logistics network. Furthermore, the federation confirmed that the temple administration raised no formal non-compliance issues regarding product purity and cleared full commercial payment for all delivered consignments. Mani emphasized that if genuine Milma tins were substituted or blended with substandard lipid analogues down the secondary distribution line, post-delivery custody should be investigated under civil and criminal statutes rather than penalizing the cooperative’s elected leadership.