LUCKNOW, Aug. 18 -- In the ongoing probe into the alleged embezzlement of donations at Ram temple, one of the eight accused, Subhash Srivastava, has approached the special judge, Prevention of Corruption Act, seeking directives to the Special Investigation Team (SIT) to de-freeze his pension account. Srivastava is a former employee of State Bank of India and draws pension from the bank. On his application, special judge, Rajat Verma, directed co-investigation officer (IO) and Ayodhya CO Ashutosh Tiwari to appear before it and clarify the status of various credits in Srivastava's account. The court asked for completion of bank verification and submission of a written report on August 18. Last week, the court heard the plea to lift the freeze. Special public prosecutor Sanjay Dubey represented the prosecution, while advocate Kulasekhar Singh, appointed by the court, appeared for the accused. The probe team said verification was regarding Rs 1 lakh allegedly transferred by Kshitij Srivastava to the accused's account. It also stated that Rs 5 lakh cheque deposited on February 2, 2026, was returned unpaid. On March 6, another Rs 5 lakh was credited via RTGS from a Bank of Baroda account. Citing these transactions, the prosecution opposed de-freezing the account at this stage. On Supreme Court directions, the state government had constituted an SIT headed by IG (Range) Lucknow Kiran S to supervise the probe. Additional SP (Barabanki) Ritesh Kumar Singh is now the lead IO with CO (Ayodhya) as co-investigator. The SIT also includes DIG (Ayodhya) Soman Barma and SSP (Ayodhya) Gaurav Grover. A separate SIT headed by Lucknow divisional commissioner is looking into administrative lapses and its report is in the final stage. The FIR in the alleged donation theft case was registered on June 25. So far, all eight accused named in the FIR had been arrested and sent to jail. As the FIR also invoked provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act, the initial investigation was handed over to Ayodhya CO Ashutosh Tewari. With the new SIT in place, the case file had now been transferred to ASP Ritesh Singh, who will lead the investigation. Investigators were now tracing the financial trail of donations and the role of officials handling temple funds. Sources said the probe may widen, with one or two more names likely to be added. One prominent name had already figured in the SIT's preliminary report. The next hearing is on August 18, when the court will consider the IO's verification report....