Bhubaneswar: The missing key of the ratna bhandar of the Jagannath temple has been found in the record room of the Puri district treasury.

Puri collector Aravind Agrawal, who is also the deputy chief administrator of the Shree Jagannath Temple, said on Wednesday: "A four-member team was searching for the key in the district record room. Finally, it was traced inside an envelope."

The case of the missing key became curious when an expert team had failed to enter into the inner chamber of the treasury on April 4. But the temple administration had suppressed the fact. On the same day, the scion of the erstwhile royal family of Puri, Gajapati Dibya Singh Deb, had wondered how the key was missing at the management committee meeting.

When the issue threatened to become a political controversy, on June 6 the government ordered a judicial probe into the circumstances leading to the key's disappearance.

Retired Orissa High Court judge Justice Raghubir Das was asked to submit a report within three months.

Succumbing to public pressure, the government on Monday replaced temple chief administrator P.K. Jena with P.K. Mohapatra.