The Supreme Court docket has directed that each penny donated on the Shri Banke Bihari Temple in Vrindavan should first go to the deity’s funds, saying no individual related to the temple can applicable choices earlier than they’re deposited into the temple treasury.
Listening to a matter regarding alleged siphoning of donations on the temple, the court docket directed the committee overseeing its functioning to place in place a clear mechanism to make sure that choices made by devotees are correctly accounted for.
The court docket made it clear that donations have to be deposited both by means of designated donation containers or on-line into the temple treasury. Any try by sevayats or others to impede the mechanism could be “considered very critically”, it stated.
“First, the donation have to be into the dedication, that’s, to the deity, and from that you’ll get your share as a part of the Bhandari duties,” the Supreme Court docket noticed.
“You can not applicable [the money] earlier than the devotee goes to the temple and provides the cash into the deity’s funds. It have to be to the deity, after which you’ll get the share,” the court docket stated.
Justice Bagchi, who was a part of the bench listening to the matter, additional remarked: “A priest can not have a garnishee proper on the deity.”
The observations got here after an intervenor representing the deity submitted that cash allegedly being taken by Bhandaris was really money obtained for bhog, or choices of meals to the deity. The counsel argued that the association was protected by a decree of a civil court docket.
“That could be a usufructuary proper of the sevayats which has been recognised by a civil court docket decree, My Lords,” the counsel submitted.
The Supreme Court docket, nonetheless, emphasised that any share or entitlement of sevayats may come up solely after the cash had first been provided to and accounted for within the title of the deity.
The court docket additionally directed that any proposed buy of property utilizing temple funds ought to be introduced earlier than it earlier than the transaction is concluded.
The instructions are aimed toward guaranteeing better monetary transparency within the administration of choices and temple funds, amid allegations of malpractices within the dealing with of donations on the distinguished Vrindavan shrine.
