NEW DELHI: The Uttar Pradesh government-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) on Sunday filed its status report in a sealed cover before the Supreme Court in the Ayodhya Ram Temple donation embezzlement case.
The status report, filed in a sealed cover, will be taken up by the top court on Monday when it hears the matter.
A three-judge Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and comprising Justices Joymala Baghchi and V. Mohana will hear on Monday, July 20, a batch of petitions seeking a court-monitored investigation into the alleged financial irregularities in donations made to the Ram Temple in Ayodhya.
The UP SIT filed the status report after being directed by the Supreme Court to do so during the previous hearing on July 13.
The petition claimed there was a lack of transparency in the collection and use of donations for the Ram Temple and sought an independent probe into the accounts of the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust.
The Uttar Pradesh government informed the top court that senior police officers had been included in the SIT and that the investigation was in progress.
The Trust has rejected the allegations as "baseless and politically motivated", asserting that all donations are properly recorded and audited.
The court had on July 13 said it would examine the status report before deciding the further course of action.
The public interest litigation (PIL), filed by advocates Narendra Kumar Goswami, Ajay Kumar Rai, Dinesh Kumar Yadav and others, sought a court-monitored investigation by the CBI and other agencies into the alleged misappropriation of donation funds collected at the Ram Mandir.
The plea also said there was urgency in the matter, as physical, electronic, digital, banking and inventory records relating to donations and offerings at the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Mandir in Ayodhya needed to be preserved.
"CCTV/DVR/NVR data, QR/UPI/payment gateway logs, hundi registers, counting sheets, bank records, vault-access records, inventory records and all connected material are not destroyed, overwritten, altered, moved, substituted or tampered with. The available CCTV/DVR/NVR footage and digital payment records are forensically copied/hash-sealed. The SIT status/preliminary report, if submitted, is kept available in sealed cover before this Court," the plea added.
The petitioners also submitted that preserving the records would not prejudice any respondent.
"It will not declare guilt. It will not interfere with any religious affair. It will not obstruct temple administration, worship, darshan, rituals, sewa or puja-paddhati. It will only preserve the subject matter of justice," the petition stated.
The petitioners further argued that public faith is not weakened by transparency but strengthened by it. They said a matter concerning donations and offerings made by millions of devotees cannot be treated as an ordinary private accounting dispute, as it concerns constitutional morality, public accountability, fiduciary responsibility and the rule of law in the secular administration of sacred public offerings.
Goswami also stressed that the petition was confined strictly to secular aspects such as the receipt, custody, counting, accounting, audit, digital trail, inventory control, CCTV preservation, QR/UPI verification, bank reconciliation and public accountability of donations and offerings.
"It does not seek to touch religious practices protected under Articles 25 and 26 of the Constitution of India," the plea stated.
