The Supreme Court on Tuesday continued hearing a batch of pleas concerning the management of the Thakur Shri Bankey Bihari Ji Maharaj Temple in Vrindavan, including applications seeking directions regarding temple rituals, administration, use of temple funds and development activities.
The Bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana granted one week’s time to the Management Committee of Thakur Shree Bankey Bihari Ji Maharaj Temple to file its response to the status report submitted by the High-Powered Committee constituted in relation to the management and development of the temple.
At the outset, Senior Advocate Shyam Divan, with Advocate Tanvi Dubey appearing for the Temple Management Committee, informed the Court that the High-Powered Committee’s status report had been filed only on the previous day and sought adequate time to examine it and place a response on record. The Court accordingly granted the petitioners one week’s time to file their reply.
Senior Advocate Maninder Singh for the High-Powered Committee also raised an issue concerning the collection of offerings around the temple’s golaks, alleging that certain Bhandaris were taking money from the area surrounding the temple golaks.
The Temple Management Committee, on the other hand, raised several concerns regarding the functioning of the High-Powered Committee. It was submitted that agendas for committee meetings were not being circulated, nor were draft minutes of the meetings being shared. The petitioners also raised the issue of the meetings not being videographed. The petitioners further submitted that their representations concerning the functioning of the temple and the committee had not been duly considered or addressed by the High-Powered Committee.
Representatives of the Goswami community also alleged that a substantial amount of temple funds had been utilised by the committee without specific directions from the Supreme Court. According to the submissions recorded by the petitioners, around ₹40 crore had been spent.
The Court, after hearing the submissions, granted the Temple Management Committee one week’s time to file its reply to the status report submitted by the High-Powered Committee.