When the Faithful Are Robbed: The Ayodhya Theft and the Case for Temple Accountability

Social activist and advocate Rakesh Singh from RKS Associate shared his views on recent Ram Mandir temple theft allegations not as lawyer first, but as a devotee of Lord Ram, one of countless ordinary people who folded their hands at the consecration in January 2024 and felt that something long awaited had finally come home.

That is precisely why the reports of nearly seven crore rupees allegedly siphoned from the donation boxes at the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi temple have wounded so many of us. The money in those daan patras was not loose change. It was faith, given freely by pilgrims who often had little to spare. To learn that it may have been stolen, and that CCTV footage may have been tampered with to conceal the trail, is a betrayal of devotion itself.

The law is not silent here. A Hindu deity is a juridical person, a principle the Supreme Court reaffirmed in the 2019 Ayodhya verdict, and those who manage a deity's property hold it as fiduciaries, not owners. Misappropriation by such custodians is criminal breach of trust under Section 316 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, the successor to Section 409 of the old Penal Code. And a public religious trust that is mismanaged can be called to account through a representative suit under Section 92 of the Civil Procedure Code.

The tools exist. What is missing is the will, and the structure, to use them before the money disappears rather than after.

That structural gap is glaring. The southern states subject their temples to statutory oversight, the Tamil Nadu Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Act, 1959, for instance, mandates audited accounts and a dedicated commissioner. Across much of north India, including Uttar Pradesh, the wealthiest shrines operate as private trusts with minimal independent audit and almost no public disclosure. We demand audited accounts from every small company, yet allow temples handling thousands of crores to function on trust alone. Faith deserves better governance than that.

The remedy is not suspicion of religion; it is institutional discipline. Mandatory independent annual audits, published in the public domain. Real-time, tamper-proof accounting of donations from box to bank. An empowered oversight authority, a Charity Commissioner or a statutory regulator, with teeth to act, not merely to file reports. And swift prosecution where breach of trust is proven, without fear or favour.

The State has constituted a Special Investigation Team, and a letter petition now lies before the Chief Justice of India. Both are welcome. But one investigation cannot substitute for a system. If we truly revere Lord Ram, we will honour him not only with a grand temple, but with the maryada, the rectitude, that defined his own reign. Accountability is not an insult to faith. It is its protection.