Ayodhya: A court here on Monday extended the judicial custody of all the eight accused in the Ram temple donation “theft” case by 14 days, with the defence objecting to the sections invoked against them by police.
Special Judge (Anti-Corruption) Rajat Varma extended the judicial custody of the accused till August 24, defence counsel Kulshekhar Singh said.
The accused – Avinash Shukla, Anukalp Mishra, Lavkush Mishra, Maneesh Kumar Yadav, Karunesh Pandey, Ramashankar Mishra, Subhash Srivastava and Ram Shankar Yadav alias Tinnu – were produced before the court through video-conferencing from the district jail, Singh said.
Police have already interrogated all the accused during their separate police remands.
During the proceedings, Singh objected to the sections invoked in the FIR, alleging that his clients have falsely been implicated.
“I approached the court with a plea that police should investigate the case under the correct sections and file the chargesheet accordingly,” Singh told reporters.
The matter of alleged theft of donations and other valuables offered by devotees at the Ram temple got highlighted in the first week of June and spiralled into a political controversy.
The Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust asked the government for a probe, after which a Special Investigation Team (SIT) was formed. On the basis of the SIT’s recommendations, an FIR was lodged and the eight accused – six of them for theft and two for hatching a conspiracy – were arrested by the end of the month.
The matter found an echo in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly as well as in Parliament.
The defence counsel further claimed that police have invoked provisions relating to both theft and embezzlement, which, he argued, cannot be applied together in the case. He also objected to the invocation of a provision carrying life imprisonment, saying the Supreme Court has held that such a provision can only be applied in cases involving habitual offenders or persons previously convicted.
“In this case, the accused are first-time offenders, so this section of life imprisonment does not apply,” Singh said. He further alleged that the accused were treated as public servants in the FIR and booked for alleged embezzlement of public property, despite the Ram temple trust not being a public authority.
