New Delhi: Over the years, the construction and management of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya under the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust – at the site of the demolished Babri Mosque – has been the subject of several intense financial controversies, including allegations of corruption in handling of funds and allocation of land.The latest among them is the allegation that donations made to the Ram Mandir had gone missing, for which the Uttar Pradesh government has now announced a special investigation team comprising a high-ranked police officer and two senior officials to probe the allegations of financial misappropriation.The Nirmohi Akhara, a powerful, centuries-old order of Ramanandi sadhus and one of the primary original litigants in the Ayodhya title dispute, has historically levelled some of the most scathing financial allegations against the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the political leaders involved in the temple movement. Their allegations against the Hindutva leadership regarding the money collected since the mass mobilisation drives of 1989-1990 focus on embezzlement, the creation of private wealth and a lack of public accounting.1. Rs 1,400 crore swindling allegationThe most high-profile public charge made by the Nirmohi Akhara accused the VHP and its political allies of pulling off a massive financial scam with historical funds. Nirmohi Akhara spokesperson mahant Sitaram explicitly accused the VHP of swindling over Rs 1,400 crore collected from devotees across India and globally since the late 1980s and early 1990s.The Akhara alleged that instead of using the vast sums of money for the actual groundwork of building the temple, the VHP hijacked the resources to fund their own organisational infrastructure, build private institutional buildings and bankroll political campaigns to form governments.The Akhara publicly stated, “They collected the money as donations from the devotees. But they used that money to construct their own buildings and form their government. They collected notes and votes in the name of the Ram Mandir, but didn’t use that money for the temple.”2. Misappropriation of Ram shilasDuring the height of the anti-Babri movement in 1989-1990, the VHP ran a massive shila pujan campaign, where millions of consecrated bricks inscribed with Jai Shri Ram along with small cash offerings were collected from villages across India.The Nirmohi Akhara alleged that the VHP not only failed to account for the cash accompanying those bricks but also mismanaged or siphoned off the structural components themselves over the decades. They claimed that the physical and financial contributions from rural India were never transparently inventoried by the entities that took charge of the workshop sites.3. Fight over local collections before 2019Before the Supreme Court’s final 2019 verdict handed the land of the demolished mosque over to a government-appointed trust, the court-appointed receiver managed the inner temple, but local collection dynamics remained a battleground.Leaders of the Akhara historically argued that local collections and traditional offerings meant for the service of Ram Lalla were systematically intercepted by VHP-backed priests and operators. The Akhara alleged that decades of everyday micro-donations at the makeshift site were funneled into private trusts run by VHP leadership rather than being maintained in an independent, transparent public repository.VHP’s responseThe VHP’s national leadership, including spokespersons like Vinod Bansal, consistently denied the Akhara’s allegations. The VHP asserted that they have maintained a meticulous, auditable record of every single penny collected since the organisation’s inception in 1964 and that all stone-carving and initial structural funding in Ayodhya came strictly from verified, tracked public accounts.When the Supreme Court ruled on the title dispute in November 2019, it dismissed the Nirmohi Akhara’s absolute claim over the land but directed the Union government to give the Akhara “appropriate representation” inside the newly created Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust. While the Akhara eventually accepted a seat on the Trust, their historical accusations regarding the pre-1992 funds remain a major flashpoint in the public memory of the temple’s financial history.4. The 2021 inflated land dealsThis land allocation scandal involved hyper-inflated pricing within minutes. Aam Aadmi Party leader Sanjay Singh and Samajwadi Party leader Pawan Pandey alleged, confirmed by various media reports, that a plot of land in Ayodhya was bought by independent individuals for Rs 2 crore and then sold to the Ram Temple Trust just five to ten minutes later for a staggering Rs 18.5 crore.The Trust defended the transaction by stating that the initial Rs 2 crore value was based on an old land agreement from years prior, and the Rs 18.5 crore reflected the actual up-to-date market value at the time of official purchase. The charge, despite having died down, has never been satisfactorily answered.5. The forged temple land purchase Aside from general land scams with hyper-inflated prices, a highly specific case of criminal forgery and cheating has been brought against the Trust’s procurement processes. An FIR was registered against a local temple priest, Ramakant Pathak, and a local land administration clerk for fraudulently selling the property of an ancient religious asset, the Naya Anand Bhavan Temple, to the Ram Mandir Trust for Rs 6 crore.Court orders from years prior had already stripped the priest of the property ownership due to misconduct. However, he allegedly colluded with local revenue officials to forge documents and present himself as the undisputed owner, effectively duping or collaborating with the Ram Mandir Trust into selling forged land.6. The multi-crore prasad scamDuring the high-profile consecration ceremony of the temple, a parallel commercial fraud scheme targeted millions of devotees worldwide. External syndicates set up highly sophisticated, unauthorised websites and digital portals falsely claiming affiliation with the official Ram Temple Trust. They collected crores of rupees under the guise of shipping free holy prasad to domestic and international devotees.The Ayodhya cyber police subsequently cracked down on the racket, busting an estimated Rs 3.85 crore prasad scam.In response to these recurring allegations of corruption and financial mismanagement, the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust, through its general secretary Champat Rai, has again maintained that all funds are safe, heavily regulated and undergo systematic joint internal audits.