HC directs to book all trustees in case of Mohatadevi gold burying incident of 2010, the then PDJ, civil judge may land in trouble

Aurangabad, Feb 3

In a major ruling, the Aurangabad bench of the Bombay High Court on Wednesday directed the police to register FIRs against all the people involved in the 2-kg gold burying incident of 2010. This may land the then principal district judge (PDJ) of the Ahmednagar district court and a civil judge in trouble.

The ruling was delivered by the bench comprising justices T V Nalawade and M G Sewlikar. With this, the then PDJ Nagesh Nhavkar, civil judge N P Tribhuvan and all other temple trustees might be booked in the criminal case. The bench in its judgement has clearly mentioned that relevant sections of the IPC for hatching a conspiracy, cheating, damaging the interest of the trust and performing black magic should be invoked in the case. An officer of deputy superintendent police or additional superintendent of police should investigate the case and superintendent of police himself should monitor the investigation to be completed within six months.

About the incident

As per a resolution passed by the temple trust in 2010, 91 gold plates (suwarnayantras) weighing 2 kg were buried under different idols of deities in every direction of the temple. Some rites and rituals were performed for it and Rs 25 lakh were given to Pradeep Jadhav of Solapur for administering the rituals. The entire plan was prepared by Ravindra Shinde.

The motive

The plan prepared by Shinde speaks about the motive behind the case. As per his plan, burying suwarnayantras helps the temple catching very micro energy waves of the universe and retaining them in the temple. The superstitious plan was approved by all trustees, including judges Nhavkar, Tribhuvan, block development officer and forest officer in 2010.

Decade-long struggle

The superstitious activities came to light in January 2017, after which the trust had targetted a newspaper for publishing a series of reports in this matter. Former chief minister Devendra Fadnavis had ordered a probe into the matter in 2017, but no action was taken against anybody by the charity commissioner.

Vastu expert Avinash Patil, Adv Ranjana Gawande and Baba Aragde of Andhashraddha Nirmulan Samiti lodged a complaint with the SP office in March 2017, but in vain. Finally, a former trustee of the temple Namdev Garad filed a petition in the High Court through Adv Satish Talekar. Adv Pradnya Talekar, Ajinkya Kale and Avinash Khedkar represented the petitioner.