From cash-counting room to courtroom: the Ram Mandir donation case widens as police target SBI officials alongside eight arrested accused

Ayodhya Police have sought a two-day custody remand for Avinash Shukla. On Wednesday, the judge contacted Shukla via video conferencing to ask whether he had legal representation — since the Faizabad Bar Association had refused to represent any of the accused, Shukla had no lawyer.
According to the SIT's report, temple trust member Krishna Mohan filed an FIR, and police arrested eight people associated with the cash-counting operation on June 26, 2026. The eight accused arrested in the Ram Mandir donation embezzlement case are Avinash Shukla, Anukalp Mishra, Lavkush Mishra, Manish Kumar Yadav, Karunesh Pandey, and Ramashankar Mishra, along with supervisory staff member Subhash Srivastava and Ramshankar, alias "Tinnu" Yadav, who served as the driver of the trust's former general secretary, Champat Rai.

A total of ₹20.40 lakh was recovered in connection with Avinash Shukla — the highest single recovery among all eight accused, representing the largest share of the total ₹79.85 lakh recovered from the group combined.

Police are not relying solely on the cash physically recovered from the accused's homes. They also want to determine whether any of these eight men, or the SBI bank staff now under suspicion, own additional property, land, or vehicles, or hold unusually large sums in bank accounts that don't match their known income. To establish this, investigators have shared each individual's Aadhaar and PAN details with various government departments — including the income tax department, the revenue department, and development authorities that maintain property and land records — in order to trace their financial status and assets.

The accused have been charged under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita sections covering criminal breach of trust, cheating, theft, and criminal conspiracy, along with Section 13(1)(a) of the Prevention of Corruption Act. All eight were sent to judicial custody the day after the FIR was registered.
Background: How the Donation System Was Built

Following the Supreme Court's 2019 Ayodhya verdict, the Government of India approved the formation of the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust on February 5, 2020. The government itself contributed only Re 1 to the Trust — the entire project was meant to be funded through public donations.
To raise the estimated ₹1,800 crore needed for construction, the Trust partnered with the VHP and RSS to launch the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Mandir Nidhi Samarpan Abhiyan, described as the world's largest crowdfunding drive. Volunteers travelled "from Kashmir to Kanyakumari," collecting donations from millions of devotees — Rajasthan alone contributed more than ₹500 crore, while stories emerged of ordinary citizens, such as a woman selling plums who donated ₹100 in coins and small notes. Over 60% of all donations came in during the campaign's first year (2020–21). By 2025, total donations had crossed ₹3,500 crore, with ₹2,150 crore spent on construction and 944 kg of silver donated by devotees — all reportedly audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG).

This enormous scale of cash and valuables required the Trust to build a large, ongoing manual system to collect, count, and deposit donations — involving trust-appointed counting staff, supervisory employees, and State Bank of India (SBI) personnel stationed at the temple.
How the Scam Came to Light

The alleged theft came to light on June 6, 2026, following a recommendation from the Trust itself. The Uttar Pradesh government then formed a three-member SIT on June 13, comprising Lucknow Divisional Commissioner Vijay Vishwas Pant, Inspector-General Kiran S, and Special Finance Secretary Neel Ratan. Their preliminary inquiry, conducted between June 15–20, uncovered what officials described as a "systematic diversion of cash" — donations were allegedly siphoned off during collection and counting, before ever reaching the Trust's official bank account.

As the investigation into the Ram Mandir donation case deepens — with Avinash Shukla's custody sought and SBI officials now under the scanner — the episode has raised serious questions about accountability and transparency in the handling of donations at one of India's most revered religious institutions. The probe is likely to widen further in the days ahead.