More than six years after the Supreme Court settled the Ayodhya title dispute, the Nirmohi Akhara has gone back to the same court — not to challenge who won, but to argue that the temple trust set up in the verdict's aftermath isn't functioning the way the judgment intended.
To recap the background: on November 9, 2019, a Constitution Bench ruled in favour of Ram Lalla Virajman and, invoking its special powers under Article 142, directed the central government to constitute a trust that would take charge of managing the temple. The same judgment specifically noted that the Nirmohi Akhara should be given appropriate representation within that body.
In its fresh application — filed within the same, technically already-disposed-of case (M Siddiq v. Mahant Suresh Das) — the Akhara is asking the Court for several things. It wants the trust reconstituted as a genuine public trust, subject to independent oversight rather than operating, as it claims, like a private body answerable to no one. It is also seeking a forensic audit of the trust's financial dealings and property transactions. On the question of the deities themselves, the Akhara wants the idols worshipped since 1950 and 1982 restored to their place, rather than the newly consecrated one currently in use. And it wants a real, properly nominated seat at the table — one chosen through the Akhara's own internal process, not handed down unilaterally.
That last point is central to the Akhara's grievance: it claims the seat meant for it was filled by nominating Mahant Dinendra Das without going through the Akhara's own selection procedure. The application also asks that daily rituals — the sewa, bhog, and puja — be conducted in line with the centuries-old Ramanandi Sampradaya tradition the Akhara follows.
Importantly, the Akhara has been careful to frame this as an implementation dispute, not an attempt to reopen the 2019 verdict itself. The application lands just ahead of a separate Monday hearing in a case involving alleged theft of temple donations, keeping the Ram Mandir Trust's governance back in the judicial spotlight.