The Special Investigation Team (SIT) set up by the Supreme Court to probe allegations of irregularities in accounting for donations at the Ram Temple has found 105 distinct instances of alleged theft after analysing CCTV footage, witness statements, and donation records, people familiar with the matter said.
The people said the finding was part of the status report submitted to the top court on September 16 and marks an increase over the 70 instances of donation theft recorded in the interim report of the first SIT led by Vijay Vishwas Pant. The first SIT was set up by the Uttar Pradesh government on June 13.
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The second SIT was constituted on July 26 following the top court’s directions and comprises Lucknow zone inspector general of police Kiran S, Ayodhya range deputy inspector general Somen Barma, Ayodhya senior superintendent of police Gaurav Grover and Barabanki additional SP Ritesh Kumar Singh.
The people said investigators analysed hundreds of hours of surveillance video tapes, along with digital logging receipts and bank deposit records, to reconstruct how donations were siphoned off before being transferred to bank lockers.
{{/usCountry}}The people said investigators analysed hundreds of hours of surveillance video tapes, along with digital logging receipts and bank deposit records, to reconstruct how donations were siphoned off before being transferred to bank lockers.
{{/usCountry}}The status report also detailed the mechanism for handling valuables donated by people, apprised the court about the arrests made in the case and the evidence collected against the accused.
A bench led by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and comprising justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana took note of the status report filed by the SIT at its hearing on Monday and expressed satisfaction with the probe.
The Supreme Court, however, declined the request to release the status report to the petitioners at this stage, saying it did not want to take the matter out of the sessions judge’s jurisdiction and would pass further orders if it found that additional investigation was required.
The Uttar Pradesh government, which was represented by solicitor general Tushar Mehta, assured the bench that the charge sheet would be filed by September 25. The deadline is significant as the 90-day statutory period from the first arrest in the case expires that day, after which the arrested accused could become eligible for default bail.
The controversy first surfaced on June 7 when Samajwadi Party leader Tej Narayan ‘Pawan’ Pandey alleged that donations worth ₹5 crore to ₹7.5 crore were siphoned off from temple offerings. In its interim report, the SIT alleged that a portion of the offerings was siphoned off before being deposited into the temple’s designated bank account, leading to the arrest of eight employees associated with handling and counting donations on June 26.
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The eight men – Anukalp Mishra, Lavkush Mishra, Ram Shankar Yadav ‘Tinnu’, Manish Yadav, Subhash Srivastava, Avinash Shukla, Rama Shankar Mishra, and Karunesh Pandey – were arrested and booked under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita sections 306, 316(5), 317(4), 317(5), 61 and 3(5), relating to offences such as criminal breach of trust, cheating, theft and criminal conspiracy, along with Section 13(1)(a) of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
Anukalp Mishra and Luvkush Mishra are related to each other, and also to Anil Mishra. Ram Shankar Yadav – an aide of Rai – and Manish Yadav are related. Investigators also seized ₹79,85,493 from the eight arrested men, recovering money from bathrooms, haystacks and cow dung cakes.