Ayodhya Bar Association Bars its Members from Representing Ram Temple Fund Accused, SC Refuses Urgent Hearing

Rohit Kumar

NEW DELHI, June 29: Even as the Supreme Court on Monday refused to commit an urgent hearing of the Ram Janmabhoomi Temple Donation Fund Embezzlement case, the Ayodhya Bar Association decided to debar any of its lawyer members from taking up the cases of the accused with some advocates even demanding some of the suspicious top brasses of the temple trust to quit the temple town within three days.

After an emergency meeting of the association on Monday, its president Kalika Prasad Mishra warned that any lawyer representing the fund embezzlement accused would be fined ₹5 lakh. “No lawyer will represent the accused in the case and if anyone does, a fine of ₹5 lakh will be imposed on them,” he said.

At the meeting, many advocates demanded that the former general secretary of the Ram Temple Trust Champat Rai, trustee Anil Mishra, and temple construction in-charge Gopal Rao leave Ayodhya within three days. The lawyers threatened to blockade the city and prevent the entry of people if the trio did not leave.

The Supreme Court, for the second time during the summer vacations, did not commit to urgently hearing petitions seeking its intervention even as one of the petitioners, an advocate, highlighted the possibility of the electronic evidence like CCTV footage can be “quietly lost,” erased, overwritten or corrupted in the coming days.

“Electronic evidence is unlike a stone inscription. A CCTV system does not wait for court vacations. A DVR does not respect a listing schedule. Digital payment logs and access records can be modified, migrated or deleted. Therefore, when the relief sought is preservation of evidence, postponement itself may become denial of justice,” advocate NK Goswami said after he made an unlisted oral mention before a Vacation Bench headed by Justice MM Sundresh.

Mr Goswami said he was not seeking a final hearing, but had only requested a non-prejudicial preservation order. “My apprehension is that CCTV/DVR data, QR-UPI logs, hundi registers, counting sheets, bank and vault records may perish before the case is listed,” he said.

During the oral mention, Mr Goswami informed the Bench that the Supreme Court Registry had informed him that the petition would be taken up only after the summer vacation, which ends on July 12. Mr Goswami went on to urge the court to pass an order to secure the electronic evidence. However, the Bench, without directly addressing the issue raised by the lawyer, asked him to follow the procedure for mentioning and listing of cases.

The previous week had seen another petition seeking a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) or a multi-disciplinary Special Investigation Team to probe the misappropriation of the temple donations. The petition had been filed by Ajay Kumar Rai and Dinesh Kumar Yadav, both advocates. When Mr Rai separately mentioned this petition, Justice Sundresh reacted that “heavens are not going to fall if the case is heard after the Supreme Court resumes regular functioning.”

Mr Goswami sought a declaration from the apex court that offerings made to a deity in a public temple constituted “sacred trust property vesting in the deity as a juristic person,” and those who handle such offerings were “fiduciaries bound by duties of transparency, accountability, and preservation.”

The petition referred to the top court’s own judgment in the State of Kerala versus Guruvayur Devaswom Managing Committee of October 2025, which had held that temple offerings, whether cash, gold, or kind, were the “absolute and inalienable property of the deity as a juristic person.” “When a devotee drops a coin into the hundiyal with faith, that money instantly ceases to be secular currency and becomes the personal property of the deity,” the court had held.

Besides the immediate preservation of all evidence, records, CCTV footage, and digital logs relating to donations and offerings at Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Mandir, the petition has asked the court to call for a status report from the ongoing SIT investigation.

It has sought an independent forensic audit of donations, offerings, and valuable items received by the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust from its inception to date. The petition said it was not merely seeking an investigation into a local crime, but wanted structural constitutional safeguards for the handling of sacred public endowments.

The petition sought the court to constitute or direct the constitution of an expert committee comprising representatives of the Union and State authorities, audit/accounting experts, digital-payment/cyber-forensic experts and temple-administration experts to frame a ‘National Minimum Temple Donation Transparency Framework’ for public temples and religious endowments of national importance and temples receiving substantial annual donations, including but not limited to Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Mandir, Ayodhya and Shri Krishna Janmasthan at. Mathura.

The petition said the framework would be strictly limited to secular aspects such as receipt, custody, counting, accounting, audit, digital trail, inventory control, CCTV preservation, QR/UPI verification, bank reconciliation and public accountability of donations and offerings, without interfering with rituals, customs, worship, etc, in the place of worship.

All the eight persons named as accused in a First Information Report (FIR) over the alleged embezzlement of donations received by the temple were sent to 14 days of judicial custody by a local court, said officials on Monday. They will now remain in the judicial custody till July 13. The order was passed by Special Judge (Anti-Corruption Court) Rajat Verma after the police told the court that the accused should remain in judicial custody till the investigation completes in the case.

The accused have been booked under charges including theft, criminal breach of trust, cheating and criminal conspiracy under multiple sections of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS). The accused included close aides of Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust chief Mr Rai. According to the FIR, the accused were involved in the counting cash and handled valuables donated by devotees at the temple. Officials have alleged that the accused had misappropriated donations collected through boxes on the temple premises.

The Ayodhya police had on Sunday searched the residences of all eight accused including of Ramashankar Yadav alias Tinnu Yadav, one of the accused and a close aide of Champat Rai, and had questioned his family members present at the premises. The police teams were accompanied by local magistrates during the searches.

The eight accused — Karunesh Pandey, Ram Shankar Mishra, Avinash Shukla, Anukalp Mishra, Lav Kush Mishra, Manish Kumar Yadav, Subhash Srivastava, and Ramashankar alias Tinnu Yadav — were associated with counting the cash and valuables received as donations at the Ram Temple. The police have so far recovered ₹79.85 lakh, from their possession.

The Ram Temple donation theft case has caused a political row in Uttar Pradesh, where assembly elections are due early next year. The Samajwadi Party, which is the prime opposition in the state, has cornered the BJP over the alleged theft, demanding the harshest punishment for the guilty.

As the war of words between Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav intensified, Mr Yadav questioned how the CM who frequently visited Ayodhya was not aware of the wrongdoings and corruption.

“The Chief Minister who was setting a world record in visiting Ayodhya still did not get this information even after going there. That is why the proverb was made — darkness under the lamp. How many times has he gone there, and yet he has no news of this. What are the State intelligence agencies and police force doing? This shows complete lack of competence,” said Mr Yadav.

In response, Mr Adityanath said the SP government fired upon Ram Bhakts. “Those who speak of making Ayodhya a religious city should first look at their own history. The Samajwadi Party government that had Ram devotees fired upon, opposed the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, stopped Shri Krishna Janmashtami celebrations, and even banned the Kanwar Yatra is today talking about making Ayodhya a religious city,” he said in Hathras.

The Chief Minister further said, “The Samajwadi Party government had even stopped Shri Krishna Janmashtami programs held in police stations and jails. The Kanwar Yatra had also been banned. Today, more than 22 temples in Hathras have been beautified, but such work was never possible under the Samajwadi government. At that time, this very money was spent on constructing boundary walls for graveyards. We diverted that same money towards temples. What is needed is not graveyards but temples, because temples are the centers of our faith.”

The Congress, an ally of Samajwadi Party, has also attacked the saffron party, saying the Yogi government was forced to register a first information report (FIR) due to its pressure and protest.