The Uttarakhand Police have registered a first information report against a staffer in the office of the Badrinath-Kedarnath Temple Committee chairperson amid allegations of donation theft at the Badrinath shrine, ANI reported on Wednesday.

Pramod Nautiyal, who was posted as a personal assistant in the chairperson’s office, had already been suspended by the temple authorities, The Indian Express reported.

Nautiyal was booked for alleged theft by clerk or servant and aggravated criminal breach of trust of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, ANI reported.

The committee had served a show-cause notice to him on Friday after the alleged irregularities came to light. Following this, a four-member inquiry panel conducted a preliminary investigation.

The investigation found that the counting of offerings made in the temple’s donation plate on July 2 “established that temple funds were illegally removed from the donation counting centre between 9 am and 9.30 am”, ANI quoted the FIR as saying.

The temple committee had filed a complaint accusing Nautiyal of unlawfully taking the donation money for “personal gains”, the news agency reported.

During his suspension, Nautiyal will be working at the temple committee’s office in Joshimath in Chamoli, The Indian Express reported.

He will not be permitted to leave the headquarters without approval from the authorities, and has been directed to cooperate in the inquiry and disciplinary proceedings, the newspaper quoted officials as saying.

Hemant Dwivedi, the trust’s chairman, told the newspaper that “the suspended man has been an employee during the term of three former chairpersons”.

Dwivedi added that the action “was taken so that no tampering can be done during the investigation”, adding that the probe aims to “ascertain the level of misappropriation in the counting centre”.

Following the developments, Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami directed the formation of a three-member “high-level committee” to probe the allegations.

The committee has been directed to submit its report to the state government within 15 days.

The developments came days after allegations that donations made to the Ram temple in Ayodhya had been embezzled.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

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