New Delhi: The newly-appointed interim general secretary of the Shri Ram Janmbhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust has alleged the State Bank of India (SBI) didn’t perform its duty properly and blamed the bank over the alleged embezzlement funds at the Ram temple in Ayodhya.“We have accounts with Bank of Baroda, Punjab National Bank and the SBI. The problem is with SBI only. They didn’t perform their duty properly. They lacked a sense of responsibility, leading to financial irregularities at the shrine. We are reviewing our ties with the SBI before taking a final decision on whether we should terminate our agreement with them,” said Mohan after a meeting on Wednesday (July 22), reported The Telegraph.Mohan added that they were waiting for the final report of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) constituted by the state government before commenting on the theft.“We didn’t discuss the theft in detail at the meeting because the SIT has not yet submitted its report,” said Mohan.The Telegraph report quoted an unnamed SBI official who said that the employees from an outsourcing company who were stationed at the temple’s vault room for counting of offerings, were selected on the suggestion of the Trust members.“Technically, those eight employees who were arrested on the charge of stealing cash and jewellery from the temple were among those hired by SBI following its agreement with the trust. But in reality, the trust members had given us those names and asked us to enrol them with the outsourcing company and hire them for the job,” the SBI official told Telegraph.Earlier, in his submission before the SIT, Champat Rai, former general secretary of the Trust had claimed that he did not approve guidelines issued in February 2025 for the cash counting process in the temple and blamed the bank.In his submission, Rai had alleged that the bank’s advice of counting the funds on a table while sitting on a chair facilitated the theft.Notably, Rai, along with Anil Mishra had resigned as members of the temple Trust over the allegations of embezzlement of the temple funds and irregularities in the counting process of offerings made by devotees, allegations which have led to severe criticism for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).