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Thursday, February 13, 2025

Call for probe into Maha Sabha finances

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NEWS DESK
1868 days ago
20200103
Pundit Satyanand Maharaj believes the State should probe the financial operations of all religious institutions

Pundit Satyanand Maharaj believes the State should probe the financial operations of all religious institutions

GUARDIAN

One pun­dit is call­ing for a probe in­to the fi­nan­cial op­er­a­tions of the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha, fol­low­ing news of the cur­rent probe in­to the Third Ex­o­dus As­sem­bly Church in Long­denville.

Ac­cord­ing to Pun­dit Satyanand Ma­haraj, Spir­i­tu­al Leader at the Satya Ananad Ashram in Aranguez, the State needs to em­bark on a se­ri­ous ex­am­i­na­tion of all re­li­gious in­sti­tu­tions, in light of this sit­u­a­tion.

In a press re­lease, Pun­dit Ma­haraj al­so takes the In­ter-Re­li­gious Or­gan­i­sa­tion and oth­er re­li­gious bod­ies to task for re­main­ing silent on the is­sue.

The re­li­gious leader says the State needs to launch an im­me­di­ate au­dit in­to the Ma­ha Sab­ha as well, es­pe­cial­ly since it re­ceives State-fund­ing—name­ly tax­pay­ers' dol­lars—for schools and fes­ti­vals, among oth­er sources of in­come.

Fol­low­ing is the full text of Pun­dit Ma­haraj’s state­ment…

“In­ves­ti­gate the Ma­ha Sab­ha fi­nances now!”

“The re­cent shock­ing an­nounce­ment by the me­dia of a Long­denville church Pas­tor at­tempt­ing to de­posit $29 Mil­lion to ob­tain the new poly­mer notes de­mands clos­er ex­am­i­na­tion of re­li­gious in­sti­tu­tions by the State. The clar­i­fi­ca­tion prof­fered by the Pas­tor as to how the im­mense trea­sure is un­be­liev­able and in­cred­u­lous. Hope­ful­ly, the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties will un­earth the truth as to the re­al source of funds.

The si­lence of the In­ter-Re­li­gious Or­ga­ni­za­tion and oth­er re­li­gious bod­ies on this is­sue is not on­ly rep­re­hen­si­ble but an in­dict­ment on their self-en­ti­tle­ment to re­li­gious and moral au­thor­i­ty.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly the sto­ry of the Long­denville Pas­tor with in­ex­plic­a­ble wealth is not un­com­mon for par­tic­u­lar mem­bers of the cler­gy that tran­scends de­nom­i­na­tions. As such, it is time that re­li­gious or­ga­ni­za­tions that use their po­si­tion of pow­er and in­flu­ence be sub­ject to au­dit and ac­count­abil­i­ty by the State.

This ac­count­abil­i­ty can be to Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Unit, the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al, or the Board of In­land Rev­enue. There is no mech­a­nism cur­rent­ly to en­sure that the re­li­gious sen­si­bil­i­ties of the so­ci­ety is not and will not be ex­ploit­ed by some ques­tion­able per­sons pos­ing as men of cloth. This au­dit needs not on­ly is re­quired but al­so made pub­lic.

One such re­li­gious or­ga­ni­za­tion that de­serves an im­me­di­ate au­dit is the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha, which re­ceives State fund­ing for Schools and Fes­ti­vals, do­na­tions from in­di­vid­u­als, as well as var­i­ous fund rais­ing ef­forts. Many of­ten com­plain that the mil­lions of dol­lars of State fund­ing of Di­vali, In­di­an Ar­rival Day or Phag­wa is nev­er seen by the tem­ples and the schools.

The mon­ey paid for jan­i­to­r­i­al staff of­ten comes with a forced do­na­tion in ex­change for the job.

For decades the Ma­ha Sab­ha has been ruled by the Ma­haraj Dy­nasty start­ing with the founder Bhadase Sagan and hand­ed to Sat and now hand­ed to his son the un­elect­ed Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Vi­jay. The Ma­haraj clan are not on­ly placed in po­si­tions of the SDMS but al­so holds in­flu­ence at Ra­dio/TV Jaagri­ti, the Ma­ha Sab­ha Sec­re­tari­at, School Cafe­te­rias, all of which are salaried. It is not there­fore strange that the Mul­ti­mil­lion Dol­lar Es­tate of Bhadase ad­min­is­tered by Sat has nev­er been re­solved af­ter four decades fol­low­ing the death of Bhadase.

Sat the re­li­gious leader of the SDMS af­ter forty years had to be or­dered by the courts to com­pen­sate the fam­i­ly of Bhadase the mon­ey owed to them by law.

Is it strange that there are ques­tions on the fi­nances of the SDMS ad­min­is­tered by the same Sat Ma­haraj?

Un­der the banyan tree of Sat Ma­haraj noth­ing in the SDMS could have grown to chal­lenge the Ma­haraj clan. SDMS elec­tions were heav­i­ly ger­ry­man­dered with threats of with­hold­ing school pro­mo­tions or jan­i­to­r­i­al jobs, or teach­ing ap­point­ments. There has nev­er been an SDMS elec­tion that was free and fair or free from fear. This re­sult­ed in a com­plainant and mal­leable SDMS Ex­ec­u­tive that nev­er ques­tioned the ac­counts of the Ma­ha Sab­ha.

I call up­on the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion and Au­di­tor Gen­er­al to im­me­di­ate­ly in­ves­ti­gate the SDMS re­gard­ing the tax­pay­ers' funds the SDMS re­ceives an­nu­al­ly.”


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