Delhi HC grants protection to man accused of diverting ISKCON temple funds during Kumbh Mela

The Delhi High Court on Thursday granted protection from arrest to a man accused of diverting funds of Rs 23 crore of the Iskcon temple in Dwarka during Kumbh Mela 2025 and misappropriation of Rs 2145 LakhAn FIR was lodged in October 2025 at the Dwarka North police station His anticipatory bail plea was rejected by the trial court on January 12thThe High Court granted relief to the accused after noting a long delay in lodging the FIR and that he was removed from his job in June 2025 despite being given Rs 2145 lakh to deposit in the account of the Department of the templeJustice Prateek Jalan granted relief to Ram Prakash Dubey as protection from arrest by the police till the next date of hearingWhile granting protection from arrest the High Court noted that even as per the allegations recorded in the FIR the temple authorities became aware of the applicants alleged misappropriation of funds and destruction of records during the Kumbh Mela 2025 but the complaint was only made in September 2025The bench further noted that According to the applicant he was removed from service on 11062025 but even in the FIR it is stated that despite the allegations against him related to the Kumbh Mela a sum of Rs 21 45 lakh was handed over to him on 28072025 for deposit in the Accounts DepartmentIn these circumstances on a prima facie consideration of the material I am of theview that the applicant is entitled to adinterim protection Justice Jalan ordered on January 29thThe High Court has directed Dubey to join the investigation as and when directed by the Investigation Officer IO and to cooperate with the investigation and has ordered it is directed that the applicant will not be arrested in connection with the subject FIR until the next date of hearingThe court has directed the police to file a status report three days before the next hearing date The complainant Sunit Goyal has been granted liberty to file a reply Matter is Listed on March 24th 2026Advocate Amit Kumar alongwith with Khushboo Sharma appeared for Ram Prakash DubeyThey argued that the allegations against the applicant are a counterblast to a complaint andlegal notice issued by him on August 21st 2025 He further submitted that Dubey was in fact removed from service on June 11th 2025 by an oral order of removal The filing of the complaint and the registration of the FIR are unduly delayedOn the other hand the Additional Public Prosecutor APP submitted that the complaint was in fact made to the police authorities on Septmeber 5th 2025 and the FIR was registered on October 10th 2025 after a preliminary inquiryAs per the FIR the applicant and his wife were allegedly involved in serious financial mismanagement criminal breach of trust destruction of records physical assault extortion and theft of temple money and propertyIt is stated that during the Kumbh Mela held at Prayagraj in early 2025 Ram Prakash Dubey was placed under close observation by the temples management in light of prior complaints regarding his conductAccording to the FIR it came to the notice of the management that the applicant was involved in the unauthorised diversion and misuse of temple funds estimated to be in the range of Rs 23 CroresIt was also discovered that the applicant had destroyed the labour attendance register of the temple in order to conceal the financial irregularities and when he was confronted in this regard he manhandled and physically assaulted two of the temple employeesThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever