Image: News Nation / YouTube
On national Hindi television, ISKCON India’s communications director says the Bengaluru temple case is not a dispute between two ISKCON societies but “ISKCON versus Madhu Pandit Dasa”, and holds up court filings in which, he says, Madhu Pandit Dasa himself described the Bangalore temple as a branch of ISKCON Bombay.
NEW DELHI, India — Yudhistir Govinda Dasa, communications director of ISKCON India, used an interview on the Hindi news channel News Nation, published on 18 October 2026, to argue that ISKCON Bangalore’s president, Madhu Pandit Dasa, had for years told courts in Bengaluru that his temple was run from Bombay. [1][3] ISKCON Bangalore, which won the temple in the Supreme Court in May 2025, says it is an independent society registered in Bangalore; its website had not responded to the interview when this report was prepared. [4][2]
The segment, about four minutes long and in Hindi, had been viewed about 9,000 times by the evening of 18 October. [1]
The anchor introduced the segment as a “new twist” in the Bengaluru temple ownership case ahead of the Supreme Court’s hearing of ISKCON Mumbai’s review petition. According to the introduction, ISKCON’s India communications head had made a “big disclosure”, raising questions about old documents and about the affidavit of the temple’s former auditor, and asking why the auditor made a U-turn on his affidavit after nine months. [1]
That last question refers to V.L. Varadarajan, ISKCON Bangalore’s former auditor, who in January 2026 filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court alleging that years of the Bangalore society’s accounts had been backdated, and who on 6 October 2026 asked the court to let him withdraw it, saying he had signed it without reading it. [5] The published segment, however, ends before the auditor is discussed: the interview covers only the history of the Bangalore temple and Madhu Pandit Dasa’s earlier court statements. [1]
Asked what had happened since the review petition was listed, Yudhistir Govinda Dasa rejected the way the case is usually described.
Through this episode I would like to tell people that there is no matter called ISKCON Mumbai versus ISKCON Bengaluru. The actual matter is only ISKCON versus Madhu Pandit Dasa, his brother-in-law, both their wives and some of their associates, who have tried to grab ISKCON’s property through fraud, fabrication and forgery.
Yudhistir Govinda Dasa, communications director, ISKCON India, to News Nation, 18 October 2026 (translated from Hindi) [1]
These are the allegations of ISKCON Mumbai, the society registered in 1971. They are the subject of a criminal case registered in Kolkata in April 2026 against Madhu Pandit Dasa and twelve others, in which no court has made any finding. [5][6]
Yudhistir Govinda Dasa told the channel that Srila Prabhupada registered ISKCON in Bombay in 1971 under the Bombay Public Trust Act and the Societies Registration Act, and that the temples he opened in India before 1977, in Vrindavan, Delhi, Hyderabad, Bhubaneswar, Kolkata and Mayapur, had no independent status but were branches under Bombay’s legal and administrative control. Srila Prabhupada’s wish, he said, was that ISKCON would function in India as a single society reporting to Bombay. [1]
In 1984 we ourselves sent one of our devotees to Bangalore. His name was Madhu Pandit Dasa, and we told him to expand the programme there.
Yudhistir Govinda Dasa to News Nation (translated from Hindi) [1]
From 1984 until 2001, when the case was filed, Madhu Pandit Dasa worked as ISKCON Bombay’s representative, he said: the Bangalore temple used the Bombay society’s tax registration and, like the other branches, sent its accounts to Bombay every year. [1]
Yudhistir Govinda Dasa then showed on screen a series of documents which, he said, were Madhu Pandit Dasa’s own statements in earlier lawsuits in Bengaluru:
“He made this statement again and again,” Yudhistir Govinda Dasa said. The segment as published breaks off at that point. [1]
These earlier statements are the “judicial admissions” at the centre of ISKCON Mumbai’s review petition. At an earlier hearing its counsel argued that several such admissions had not been considered in the May 2025 judgment, and the bench said it would hear the matter “both on merit and scope of review”. [2][5]
ISKCON Bangalore says it is “an independent ISKCON society registered in Bangalore”, that the Bangalore Development Authority allotted the temple land to it in 1988, and that the property and the funds to build the temple were raised in Bangalore. After the Supreme Court’s judgment of 16 May 2025 it said the Hare Krishna Hill temple “belongs to ISKCON Bangalore society, not ISKCON Mumbai society”, and that ISKCON Mumbai had been restrained from interfering with its management. [4]
In that judgment, Justices Abhay S. Oka and A.G. Masih held that ISKCON Bangalore is a distinct society registered under the Karnataka Societies Registration Act, not a branch of ISKCON Mumbai. [2][5] The 16 May 2025 statement does not address Madhu Pandit Dasa’s earlier court filings, and as of 18 October 2026, 20:30 Brasília time, ISKCON Bangalore’s website carried no statement on the News Nation interview, the auditor’s affidavits or the Kolkata case. [4]
The Supreme Court has not yet heard the review petition on its merits. Justice Manoj Misra recused himself from the bench on 5 October, and the papers went back to the Chief Justice of India to form a new bench. Until the review is decided, the May 2025 judgment stands and the temple remains with ISKCON Bangalore. [2][5]
The News Nation segment presents one party’s case: it interviews ISKCON India’s communications director and carries no response from ISKCON Bangalore or Madhu Pandit Dasa. Akincana Gocara has not examined the documents shown on air; their descriptions above are Yudhistir Govinda Dasa’s. The quotations are our translation from the Hindi, made from the video’s automatic transcript.
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