Ayodhya, Sept. 30 -- The bail applications of two accused in the alleged Ram Temple donation theft case could not be heard on Wednesday in a special court as the judge was on leave, their lawyer said.
Advocate Kul Shekhar Singh, representing accused Subhash Srivastava and Ramashankar Yadav alias Tinnu Yadav, said that the Anti-Corruption court of Judge Rajat Verma will now hear the bail applications on October 6 and 7.
"The hearing could not take place today as the judge was on leave. The bail applications will now be heard on October 6 and 7, with one application being taken up on each day," Singh said.
He said bail pleas of the six others accused had earlier been heard on separate dates but were rejected by the special court.
"If the bail applications of the remaining two accused, Subhash Srivastava and Ramashankar Yadav alias Tinnu Yadav, are rejected at the next hearing, we will move the Allahabad High Court (Lucknow bench) with bail applications for them as well as the other accused," Singh said.
Singh said he and his colleagues were examining the charge sheet filed recently in the case, which runs into thousands of pages, and the arguments in the matter would be based on their examination of the document.
The charge sheet was filed by the Supreme Court-mandated Special Investigation Team (SIT) and runs into around 70,000 pages, naming 173 witnesses.
Investigators have also collected video evidence of 105 instances in which cash was allegedly diverted during the counting of donations, according to a senior police officer.
The case relates to alleged embezzlement of cash and valuables offered by devotees at the Ayodhya Ram Temple. Eight people were arrested after an FIR was registered on June 25 based on a preliminary SIT report.
Most of the accused are bank employees deployed for counting donations.
Srivastava was allegedly supervising the counting process, while Tinnu Yadav worked as a driver. Yadav was a close aide of former Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust general secretary Champat Rai.
The prosecution said Rs 79.85 lakh of the suspected embezzled money was recovered during the investigation from all the accused except Srivastava.
According to the charge sheet, the SIT investigation did not find evidence of pilferage during the subsequent transfer of counted money to banks.
Investigators relied on CCTV footage from the cash-counting facility, witness statements, banking and financial records and a forensic audit.
The special court had rejected the bail pleas of Avinash Shukla, Manish Kumar Yadav and Ram Shankar Mishra on September 21 and those of Anukalp Mishra, Lav Kush Mishra and Karunesh Pandey the next day.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.