New Delhi, July 10: A series of legal petitions demanding that the Central Bureau of Investigation take over the probe into alleged financial irregularities at the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust will be heard by the Supreme Court on Monday. The three public interest litigations demand strict judicial supervision over the temple trust’s assets following the discovery of a donation theft. The matter will come before a newly assembled Bench consisting of Chief Justice Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi, and Justice V Mohana on July 13.
The legal push for federal oversight intensifies even as local state police continue to execute arrests. Highlighting the scale of the public interest involved, a petition filed by Buxar Member of Parliament Sudhakar Singh affirmed that eight accused individuals have already been apprehended, with authorities recovering 77 lakh rupees from the suspects. The lawmaker declared, “The Trust should be directed to preserve all financial records, including physical documents, digital ledgers, UPI transaction logs and bank statements, to prevent any alleged tampering with evidence.” He affirmed that the apex court should install a temporary, court-monitored Oversight Committee of retired judges and financial experts to approve major financial decisions during the pendency of the investigation.
The state-level response was initiated mid-last month after the temple trust flagged internal discrepancies. The Uttar Pradesh administration set up a specialized state investigation unit comprising Lucknow Divisional Commissioner Vijay Vishwas Pant, Inspector General Kiran S, and Finance Special Secretary Neel Ratan. Following their initial report on June 23, an official police complaint was filed under the direction of Ayodhya Deputy Superintendent of Police Ashutosh Tiwari. The eight arrested employees—identified as Avinash Shukla, Anukalp Mishra, Lav Kush Mishra, Manish Kumar Yadav, Karunesh Pandey, Ram Shankar Mishra, Subhash Srivastava, and Ramashankar alias Tinnu Yadav—were specifically tasked with handling and counting the cash and valuables donated by the public.
Alternative legal avenues are simultaneously being pursued by independent legal groups. Advocates Ajay Kumar Rai and Dinesh Kumar Yadav filed a petition seeking a multi-disciplinary team led by the federal police to probe structural illegalities within the administration. Another petition submitted by petitioner-in-person Narendra Kumar Goswami explicitly demands that the Comptroller and Auditor General of India conduct a full-scale institutional audit of the Trust. While the Supreme Court prepares to evaluate these combined demands on Monday, parallel legal petitions seeking identical anti-corruption reliefs remain active before the Allahabad High Court.
