CJI-led Bench to hear pleas on Ram Temple donation embezzlement case on July 13
A three-judge Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant is scheduled to hear separate petitions seeking a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe
A three-judge Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant is scheduled to hear separate petitions seeking a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe and protection of electronic evidence in the Ram Temple donations’ embezzlement case on Monday (July 13, 2026) when the Supreme Court re-opens after summer vacation. The summer vacations had seen multiple petitions filed and orally mentioned before Vacation Benches in the top court in connection with the alleged misappropriation of offerings and donations given by devotees to the Ram Temple in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh. A petition filed by Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) MP Sudhakar Singh to provide and publish complete financial details of the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust, including foreign contributions, is listed along with two other petitions on Monday.
Singh had sought the court to direct the Trust to prepare and produce a complete statement of donations of cash, bank transfers, digital payments, foreign contributions, gold, silver and other valuables, together with the particulars of their accounting, custody, and utilisation since its inception. The RJD MP has submitted that it was of “exceptional public importance” that the truth comes out in the case. “The preservation of public confidence in one of the most revered religious institutions of the country, and the need for constitutional safeguards to ensure that the ongoing investigation into allegations concerning the handling of devotees’ offerings must be fair, independent, and inspire the confidence of the nation,” the petition said.
The petition has also urged the court to order the preservation of physical, electronic, and digital records, including books of accounts, cash books, ledgers, vouchers, bank records, UPI and other digital payment records, CCTV footage, electronic devices, servers, emails, and every other record relating to the receipt, custody, accounting, and utilisation of donations and offerings received by the Trust in order to ensure that no material evidence was destroyed, altered, or tampered with during the course of investigation. Singh has sought a comprehensive forensic audit of the accounts, donations, bank transactions, and financial records of the Trust through an independent agency of unquestionable credibility. He said the report must be submitted in the Supreme Court.
He said the proper accounts on the donations and offerings received must be published at regular intervals to ensure complete transparency. Supreme Court advocate N.K. Goswami’s petition, also listed for hearing on Monday (July 13), focussed on the protection of electronic evidence like CCTV footage which could be “quietly lost”, erased, overwritten, or corrupted in the coming days. “Electronic evidence is unlike a stone inscription,” Mr. Goswami submitted. The third petition, jointly filed by advocates Ajay Kumar Rai and Dinesh Kumar Yadav, has urged the top court to either order a CBI probe or appoint a multi-disciplinary Special Investigation Team in the case.
The BriefWire