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Informist, Monday, Jul. 27, 2026

 

NEW DELHI – The Supreme Court Monday asked a special investigation team, formed by the Uttar Pradesh government, to submit its status report in 2 weeks regarding probe of the alleged financial irregularities in handling of donations and offerings at the Ram temple in Ayodhya by officials of the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust. The bench led by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant also asked the state government to include a forensic auditor in the special investigation team as the nature of investigation involves alleged misappropriation of trust funds. "We are focussed on having a fair, speedy and impartial investigation," said Chief Justice Kant.

 

The apex court was informed by Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Uttar Pradesh government, that a special investigation team has been formed and it will be headed by Inspector General of Police Kiran S. The top court in the last hearing had suggested the state government include Kiran's name in the special investigation team as he was also part of the previous probe team that had found a cognisable offence in the case.  

 

The court was hearing petitions filed by Narendra Kumar Goswami and others. The petitioners sought a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation into the allegations of large-scale misappropriation of donations received by the trust. They also sought a forensic audit of donations and offerings received by the trust. 

 

The petitioners said that the money donated by various individuals had not reached the trust and requested the court to upload the receipts of the donation given on the trust to the latter's website. On this the apex court said that let the special investigation team give its report and all remedial steps to ensure transparency will be taken thereafter. The court said that it was on qualitative investigation of the incident. "Right now our entire focus is on investigation. We must have a speedy and qualitative investigation. We are asking them to submit a report to us. The rest we will decide at a later stage," said the court.

 

In June, reports emerged of irregularities, misappropriation, disappearance, and mishandling of donations and offerings at the Shri Ram Janmbhoomi Mandir in Ayodhya. Thereafter, the Uttar Pradesh government set up a special investigation team to examine the matter. The SIT was formed only to find the truth in the allegations. Various high-ranking leaders within the temple administration have resigned and eight people have been arrested. 

 

 

The petitioners argued that the disappearance or mishandling of offerings made to a deity is an injury to faith, to public trust, to constitutional morality, to the devotees' right to worship, and to the integrity of public religious endowments. Where devotees place money, gold, silver, jewellery, precious articles, or digital donations before the deity, such offerings become impressed with a fiduciary character, they claimed. The absence of uniform safeguards for temple donations creates arbitrary and unreasonable risk of breach of faith, misappropriation, and violation of devotees' constitutional rights, they said.

 

The Shri Ram Janmabhoomi temple is among the more popular temples in India and has received unprecedented public attention and offerings from devotees. The trust administering the temple was created pursuant to the final judgment of the apex court in the Ayodhya dispute on Aug. 5, 2019. The court had held that while the demolition of the over 450-year-old Babri Masjid was a criminal act, the land should be handed over to the Hindu side to build a temple.  End 

 

Reported by Surya Tripathi

Edited by Akul Nishant Akhoury

 

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