The Special Investigation Team (SIT) formed by the Supreme Court to probe alleged irregularities in the accounting of donations at the Ram Temple in Ayodhya has stumbled upon as many as 105 distinct instances of alleged theft, sources privy to the investigation said.
The findings are based on an analysis of CCTV footage, witness statements and donation records, which were included in a status report submitted to the apex court on September 16. Notably, the figure is higher than the 70 instances of alleged donation theft identified in the interim report submitted by the first SIT, headed by Vijay Vishwas Pant.
2nd SIT expands probe
The Uttar Pradesh government had constituted the first SIT in the case on June 13, while directives were issued by the Supreme Court later, following which a second SIT was formed on July 26 this year.
The second team comprises Lucknow Zone Inspector General of Police Kiran S, Ayodhya Range Deputy Inspector General Somen Barma, Ayodhya Senior Superintendent of Police Gaurav Grover and Barabanki Additional Superintendent of Police Ritesh Kumar Singh.
The SIT analysed hundreds of hours of CCTV camera feed, besides digital logging receipts and bank deposit records, in a bid to reconstruct the alleged process by means of which donations were siphoned off before being transferred to bank lockers.
The status report also reflected on the mechanism used to handle valuables donated by devotees. It apprised the court of the arrests made in the case and the evidence furnished against the accused.
SC takes cognisance of report
An SC bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant and comprising Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana took cognisance of the SIT’s status report during a hearing on Monday and expressed satisfaction with the progress of the probe.
However, the top court refused to make the status report available to petitioners at this juncture. The bench remarked that it did not want to take the matter out of the jurisdiction of the sessions judge and would issue further orders if it found that additional investigation was needed.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing on behalf of the Uttar Pradesh government, assured the SC bench that the charge sheet would be filed by September 25.
8 held so far in donation theft case
The deadline is significant as the 90-day statutory period from the first arrests is set to expire on September 25. Following that, the arrested accused could turn eligible for default bail.
The controversy emerged on June 7, 2026, after Samajwadi Party leader Tej Narayan ‘Pawan’ Pandey alleged that donations amounting between Rs 5-7.5 crore had been siphoned off from temple offerings.
The first SIT’s interim report mentioned that a portion of offerings had been diverted before being deposited into the temple’s designated bank account. In connection with this, eight employees involved in handling and counting the cash money received in donations were arrested on June 26.
The accused have been identified as Anukalp Mishra, Lavkush Mishra, Ram Shankar Yadav ‘Tinnu’, Manish Yadav, Subhash Srivastava, Avinash Shukla, Rama Shankar Mishra and Karunesh Pandey, who were booked under Sections 306, 316(5), 317(4), 317(5), 61 and 3(5) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS). The aforementioned sections pertain to criminal breach of trust, cheating, theft and criminal conspiracy, as well as Section 13(1)(a) of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
The investigating police personnel claimed to have seized Rs 79,85,493 from all the accused, and cash was recovered from washrooms, haystacks and cow dung cakes. Anukalp Mishra and Lavkush Mishra are related to each other and to Anil Mishra, while Ram Shankar Yadav, who has been described as an aide of Rai, and Manish Yadav, are also related.