Judicial custody of 8 accused in Ayodhya Ram temple donation theft case extended till Sep 21

Ayodhya: The judicial custody of all eight accused arrested in connection with the alleged theft of donations at the Ram temple here was on Friday extended till September 21, their lawyer said.

The order was passed by Special Judge Rajat Verma of the Anti-Corruption Court in Ayodhya which will hear the case on September 21, advocate Kul Shekhar Singh, who represents the accused, told PTI.

The court also directed police to produce the case diary at the next hearing, Singh said.


The eight accused, who were associated with the temple's donation-counting process, were arrested after an FIR was lodged on June 25 following a preliminary report by a state government-constituted Special Investigation Team (SIT). They are currently lodged in jail.

The accused are Avinash Shukla, Anukalp Mishra, Lav Kush Mishra, Manish Kumar Yadav, Karunesh Pandey, Ram Shankar Mishra, Subhash Srivastava and Ramashankar alias Tinnu Yadav.

The case relates to the alleged embezzlement of cash and valuables offered by devotees at the Ram temple. Investigators have so far recovered Rs 79.85 lakh, according to the prosecution.

Most of the accused were bank employees deployed for counting cash donations at the temple, while Srivastava was in-charge of the donation-counting process and Tinnu Yadav worked as a driver.

In his bail application, Srivastava has claimed that he was falsely implicated and informed the court about the donation-counting process. He has also contended that several other people, apart from the eight arrested accused, were involved in the counting process, his counsel said.