The police on Monday informed the Madras High Court of having written to Milaap, a crowd funding platform through which YouTuber S. Karthik Gopinath had collected over ₹30 lakh within three days for a stated purpose of restoring a few damaged temple idols, to deposit the amount to the credit of a criminal case booked against him.
Appearing before Justice P.D. Audikesavalu, State Public Prosecutor Hasan Mohammed Jinnah said the police had initiated steps to retrieve the money lying with Milaap and secure it. He made the submission when the judge expressed concern over third parties keeping such huge amounts of public donations.
Advocate-General R. Shunmugasundaram insisted that the prosecution against the YouTuber must be allowed to proceed de hors his present writ petition seeking a direction to the Department of Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments to recognise him as a donor and permit transfer of the amount to the Stapathi concerned.
However, advocate V. Raghavachari, representing the YouTuber, told the court that the Executive Officer of the Madurakaliamman Temple at Siruvachur in Perambalur district had conceded in his counter-affidavit that the writ petitioner had indeed sought permission to donate money for restoring the temple idols.
The permission was sought on December 29, 2021, and accordingly a proposal for permitting him to donate money was forwarded to the HR&CE Commissioner by the Joint Commissioner in Tiruchi on February 12 this year. However, suddenly thereafter, the proposal had been withdrawn without any intimation to the petitioner, he said.
Counsel also contended that every penny collected by the writ petitioner through the crowd funding platform had been accounted for and the details of the donations were available on the website of Milaap. He further claimed that there was no prohibition in law on seeking donations through such platforms.
On the other hand, Special Government Pleader (HR&CE) N.R.R. Arun Natarajan stated that there was a specific prohibition under the statutory rules for collection of donations by individuals in the name of temples, but Mr. Raghavachari contended that the provision being referred to by the SGP would not be applicable to the present case.
Advocate R. Bharanidharan, representing the Executive Officer, said the EO was initially under the impression that the petitioner would be donating money from his own funds and hence the proposal was forwarded to the HR&CE Commissioner. It came to light later that he had collected donations using the temple’s name.
After hearing all of them, the judge clubbed the present writ petition along with a case pending before a Special Division Bench of Justice R. Mahadevan and himself wherein they were dealing with many aspects of temple management, including receipt of donations and keeping a proper account.
