Ram temple trust sits on three CEO names after screening 5,585 applications

The Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust is choosing its first chief executive from a shortlist of three after a search committee screened 5,585 applications. The Trust was scheduled to decide on Wednesday, 2 September, at the Ayodhya residence of its president, Nritya Gopal Das, in Maniramdas Chhawani.

The committee has not published the three names. Local reporting has pointed to retired Uttar Pradesh-cadre IPS officer Rajesh Pandey, former IAS officer Yogeshwar Ram Mishra and former Bihar Director General of Police Paresh Saxena as the names in circulation. Those identifications have not been confirmed by the Trust.

How the list was cut

The three-member panel is retired Justice Pramod Kohli, retired Lieutenant General Vishnukant Chaturvedi and Suresh Haware, a nuclear scientist who earlier chaired the Shri Saibaba Sansthan Trust at Shirdi. Committee secretary Sameer Panda said applications were taken between 11 and 18 July.

The eligibility rules, set before the window opened, asked for temple-administration experience and required the candidate to be a "staunch Hindu." Panda said the 5,585 files were screened with AI-assisted tools and by hand. One account of the scoring said 108 candidates who scored 470 points or more went to the next round.

Online interviews ran in early August. Sixteen or seventeen candidates were then called to Ayodhya for in-person meetings on 11 and 12 August. The committee described the last three as people with "institutional leadership, management expertise, integrity and vision" for an institution of "national and international significance."

Why the Trust wants a CEO now

The temple has been run without a permanent professional chief since the consecration. The decision to hire one followed allegations of theft and irregular handling of donations. That is the immediate administrative reason. The political reason is that the Trust now sits on a site that draws pilgrims in the millions and money in volumes that a volunteer board cannot watch alone.

Champat Rai Giri, a senior Trust functionary, said the panel first cut the pile to about 3,000, then 1,500, then 300 before the last rounds. Those are his figures. The committee's own public note used 5,585 as the starting count and three as the finish.

Wednesday's meeting is also expected to fill other vacant posts. The CEO will not be the only appointment if the Trust follows that agenda.

What the job will actually test

The next holder will inherit an accounts controversy, a pilgrimage machine that has outgrown the old Trust secretariat, and a political glare that does not switch off. The shortlist is heavy on retired police and civil service careers. That is a choice about control and process, not about ritual.

If the Trust names someone on 2 September, the first public test will be whether donation ledgers, vendor contracts and visitor management sit under one officer who can be sacked. If it delays, the same three names will sit in the file while the allegations that created the post keep circulating.