Ayodhya Bar Association Says Lawyers Won't Represent Ram Temple Funds Theft Accused

A Rs 5 lakh fine on lawyers flouting the ‘ban’ will be levied. The bar association has also called for Champat Rai and Anil Mishra to leave Ayodhya in three days.

The Wire Staff

A Rs 5 lakh fine on lawyers flouting the ‘ban’ will be levied. The bar association has also called for Champat Rai and Anil Mishra to leave Ayodhya in three days.

ayodhya bar association says lawyers won t represent ram temple funds theft accused

Ayodhya/Faizabad Bar Association president Kalika Prasad Mishra addresses the media at the Faizabad District Court, in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, Monday, June 29, 2026. Photo: PTI.

New Delhi: There are news reports that the Ayodhya Bar Association in Uttar Pradesh has declared that it will not represent those accused in the alleged embezzlement of donations in the Ayodhya Ram Temple.

The bar association is also referred to as the 'Faizabad Bar Association'.

In a general body meeting on June 29, the Ayodhya Bar Association warned that any member who takes up the case for the accused will face a fine of Rs 5 lakh.

The lawyers can be seen on videos, now viral on social media, demanding that that Champat Rai, Anil Mishra, and Gopal Rao – figures linked to the controversy – "leave Ayodhya within three days.” The lawyers have said they will blockade the city if they did not comply.

Ayodhya Bar association serves ultimatum to Champat & co.
"Champat Rai, Anil Mishra, and Gopal Rao must leave Ayodhya within 3 days or be sent to jail. If that does not happen, we will completely jam Ayodhya."
The Bar Association has said that no lawyer will fight the case… pic.twitter.com/k3389228XG
— Piyush Rai (@Benarasiyaa) June 29, 2026

Champat Rai was the general secretary of the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Trust, and has recently offered to step down alongwith Anil Mishra, another trustee of the high-profile Trust set up on the directions of the Supreme Court and whose constitution was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself.

Hindustan Times reports that the bar association's move “echoes its 2005 decision when it refused to represent those accused in the Ram Mandir terrorist attack case.”

"The theft of temple offerings has deeply hurt our sentiments," said Bar Association secretary Shailendra Jaiswal. “All lawyers in Faizabad have agreed not to defend the arrested accused.”

VIDEO | Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh: Ayodhya Bar Association president Kalika Sharan Mishra, says, "It was decided in the meeting that no lawyer will defend the accused (in Ram Temple donation theft case). It was resolved that the lawyers of our Bar Association will not represent the… pic.twitter.com/Cbu3UaQ3HG
— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) June 29, 2026

A video of Kalika Prasad Mishra, the president of the Bar association making the announcement, went viral after the Bar’s decision. “No lawyer will represent the accused in the case and if anyone does, a fine of Rs 5 lakh will be imposed on them,” he could be heard saying in the clip, as lawyers around him clapped at the announcement.

For the accused to be represented, however heinous the crime, is a right under Indian law. But several Bar associations have often drawn up ‘rules’ about not representing categories of accused. Champat Rai and Anil Mishra are not named in any FIR filed in Ayodhya so far.

This article went live on June twenty-ninth, two thousand twenty six, at fifty-six minutes past three in the afternoon.

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