The earlier judicial custody of the eight accused, including Champat Rai aide Tinnu Yadav, is ending today.
The eight accused in Ayodhya Ram Temple donation theft will be produced before a special court dealing with corruption cases as their custody ends today.
Last week, the Yogi Adityanath government ordered FIR in connection with the alleged donation theft days after Samajwadi Party Chief Akhilesh Yadav made the startling revelation.
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Eight individuals, including an associate of Ram Temple Trust General Secretary Champat Rai, were booked on charges including theft, criminal breach of trust, cheating and criminal conspiracy under multiple sections of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).
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The accused have been identified as Lavkush Mishra, Anukalp Mishra, Avinash Shukla, Manish Yadav, Subhash Chandra Srivastava, Avinash Shukla, Karunesh Pandey and Champat Rai associate Ramshankar Yadav alias Tinnu Yadav.
They were produced before a court on June 27 and sent to judicial custody until June 29.
While the exact figure of the theft has not been formally revealed by the investigators, some reports claimed donations and other offering to the tune of Rs 200 crore were missing.
Samajwadi Party leader from Ayodhya and former Uttar Pradesh minister Pawan Pandey has suggested that the temple trust knew about alleged irregularities long before they were exposed by SP chief Akhilesh Yadav.
He claimed that the donation theft became public after those involved in the “loot” had a major fall out over the division of the money.
Certain individual doners have also come forward, alleging that they handed over silver artifacts to Champat Rai but didn’t recieve any reciepts.
Following the allegations, Champat Rai and Trustee Anil Mishra have tendered resignation but they have not yet been accepted.
The Opposition has been demanding a court-monitored CBI probe into the matter. However, the Supreme Court has refused an urgent hearing in the matter.
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