T
heft of donated money from the Shri Ram Janmbhoomi Mandir in Ayodhya has been found to have revealed gross inadequacies in the security protocols for handling cash, has prompted a Special Investigation Team investigation, has resulted in the resignation of top officials of the temple trust, and has necessitated an overhaul of how the temple maintains accounting for millions of donations made by devotees to the temple.
Starting out as mere discrepancies while counting the donations made at the Ram Temple in Ayodhya, what has now emerged as one of the worst scandals involving management at the Shri Ram Janmbhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust since the consecration of the temple in January 2024 has revealed multiple cases of sustained theft carried out within the counting room of the temple over the last couple of months after a Special Investigation Team (SIT) has been appointed by the state government to investigate the matter.
The initial detection of the misappropriation of the temple donations became public in the early days of June 2026 following some issues during the process of counting the contributions taken out from the hundi of the temple.
On the recommendation of the temple trust, a three-member SIT was formed by the Uttar Pradesh government consisting of Lucknow Divisional Commissioner Vijay Vishwas Pant, Inspector General of Police Kiran S, and Special Secretary (Finance) Neel Ratan.
According to reports, the examination of the CCTV footage from a period of about 40 to 45 days, i.e., from late April 2026 to early June 2026, revealed as many as 70 incidents where the counting staff put the currency notes in their clothes, pockets, and shoes.
The investigators found that there was no frisking at all at the entry and exit points, pocketless uniforms of the counting staff were not used, and personal belongings of the staff members were freely allowed in the counting room.
Though there were biometric devices for tracking the movements of the counting staff members, it was ineffective. Similarly, although there were CCTV cameras, no monitoring was done through these to create a sense of deterrent effect.
As of now, eight individuals linked with the donation counting process at the temple have been arrested in relation to the case.
Out of these eight individuals, six have been identified by the SIT – namely Avinash Shukla, Anukalp Mishra, Lavkush Mishra, Manish Kumar Yadav, Karunesh Pandey, and Ramshankar Mishra – who were identified as being responsible for the crime by the SIT team.
The other two suspects who have been identified in the case are Manish Yadav, who is Ramshankar Mishra's assistant, and Subhash Chandra Srivastava, who is a retired bank employee and was the supervisor for the cash counting process at the temple.
There are also concerns about how these individuals were employed initially. As per the SIT report, Manish Kumar Yadav, one of the accused staff members, was recommended for this post by his uncle Ramshankar Yadav, better known as Tinnu, who himself had access to the donation boxes without any kind of formal authorization, which is very problematic because he is said to be the aide to the former general secretary of the trust, Champat Rai.
The police at Ayodhya have sought the remand custody of several individuals so as to.
The other disturbing thing found in the interim report by the SIT is that these weaknesses were known long back.
The audit reports during the period of 2022-23 to 2025-26 had time and again pointed out the need to improve the search process, to open separate account for each donation box, proper recording of the valuables and to retain the CCTV footage for at least 180 days.
It is claimed that the officials of the trust ignored the warnings in the internal audits.
There have been consequences of this scandal for the trust.
General Secretary Champat Rai and trustee Anil Mishra have resigned due to the scandal, while trustee Krishna Mohan was appointed as interim general secretary.
The temple trust claims that all the donations are safe and recorded properly, despite the fact that members of the trust accept the fact that this scandal has done considerable damage to the reputation of the trust and the city of Ayodhya.
The scandal has even reached the Supreme Court, and the latter issued a notice to the Ram Temple Trust for providing the status report of the findings of the SIT.
As a response to this issue, the Shri Ram Janmbhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust has come up with a comprehensive list of protocols when it comes to handling the donations.
The people in charge of counting have to wear only a uniform with no pockets, have mandatory police verification, and should change clothes in special rooms before entering the counting room.
They won’t sit at tables and chairs but will have to count cash sitting on the floor, so it’s difficult to hide it. Only the specially selected team is going to count cash and not those people who were responsible for the cleanliness.
It is already evident how these changes affected the personnel working at the temple: 23 people who were engaged in the counting process left their jobs in the company which was contracted for this job, floor,e trust started to hire new people in accordance with the changed rules.
The government of the state of Uttar Pradesh also gave the SIT a permission to extend its investigation by examining spending during the previous 2024 consecration ceremony.
