Image: News24 / YouTube
In a twelve-minute interview on News24, one of India’s largest Hindi news channels, ISKCON India’s communications director repeats the charge of forgery against the leaders of the Bengaluru temple and adds two new claims: a forensic report on altered letters and an estimate that their group has built a ₹15,000 crore “empire”. Madhu Pandit Dasa’s supporters call the charges trumped up.
NEW DELHI, India — Yudhistir Govinda Dasa, communications director of ISKCON India, told the Hindi news channel News24 that an independent forensic laboratory has found documents produced by the Bengaluru temple’s leadership to be “fabricated and forged”, and that Madhu Pandit Dasa’s group has built “an empire of at least ₹15,000 crore”.[1] The report, published on 27 October 2026 under the title “ISKCON vs ISKCON: Who owns Lord Krishna’s ₹15,000 crore property?”, went out on a YouTube channel with 27.6 million subscribers.[1] ISKCON Bangalore, which won the Hare Krishna Hill temple in the Supreme Court in May 2025, says it is an independent society that owns the temple, and a channel that supports Madhu Pandit Dasa calls the ₹15,000 crore allegation “trumped-up charges”.[2][3]
The reporter, Varun Sinha, opened by asking how a society that teaches that all wealth belongs to Krishna came to be fighting over property, and introduced his guest as ISKCON’s communications head.[1] Yudhistir Govinda Dasa answered that there is no dispute of ISKCON versus ISKCON:
“The dispute that is happening is between the ISKCON organisation as a whole versus Madhu Pandit Dasa, his brother-in-law Chanchalapathi Dasa, both their wives, and some other associates, who together conspired to usurp the ISKCON property in Bengaluru through fabrication and forgery.”
Yudhistir Govinda Dasa, communications director, ISKCON India, to News24, 27 October 2026 (translated from Hindi) [1]
He made the same argument on the channel News Nation on 18 October, when he showed earlier court filings in which, he said, Madhu Pandit Dasa had described the Bangalore temple as a branch of the Bombay society.[4]
According to Yudhistir Govinda Dasa:[1]
The Supreme Court ruled for the Bengaluru society in May 2025. ISKCON Mumbai sought a review, arguing that the judgment had not addressed the High Court’s findings of fabrication; a three-judge bench, Yudhistir Govinda Dasa said, accepted the review on its merits in December 2025, issued notices and allowed fresh documents.[1]
On 21 January 2026, the day before the review was to be listed, the temple’s former auditor, V.L. Varadarajan, filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court admitting, in Yudhistir Govinda Dasa’s words, that he had fabricated and backdated accounts “under the pressure of Madhu Pandit Dasa”. ISKCON then pursued a criminal complaint through the Chief Judicial Magistrate in Kolkata, and witness statements, including the auditor’s in Pune, were recorded between June and August.[1][5]
Yudhistir Govinda Dasa then described the auditor’s turnaround. On 3 October, he said, Varadarajan complained to the police in Delhi that Madhu Pandit Dasa was threatening him through his driver and offering him ₹50 crore to tell the Supreme Court that he had signed the affidavit under pressure from Mumbai; on 6 October Varadarajan withdrew the affidavit, saying his state of mind had not been right and that he had signed it without reading it. “A lawyer is saying this,” Yudhistir Govinda Dasa remarked.[1] Varadarajan’s own 6 October affidavit alleges pressure from the Mumbai side, as Akincana Gocara reported on 12 October.[6] Madhu Pandit Dasa’s petition to the Calcutta High Court to quash the criminal case is pending after the judge assigned to it recused himself.[1][5]
The new claim in the interview concerns the documents themselves.
“There are many false, fabricated, and forged documents. So, we gave a small sample set to an independent third-party forensic lab. The lab’s independent analysis is that all these documents are fabricated and forged.”
Yudhistir Govinda Dasa to News24 (translated from Hindi) [1]
He described two of them as letters exchanged between the Bengaluru temple, in the names of Madhu Pandit Dasa and Chanchalapathi Dasa, and the Telephone Department. When written, he said, the letters supported ISKCON’s case, but the registration number of the dormant Karnataka society was later inserted into them; according to the laboratory, the insertion was made “using a different typewriter and a different medium” and was not part of the original letter.[1] He did not name the laboratory. The report has not been made public, and Akincana Gocara has not seen it.
Yudhistir Govinda Dasa said that the Akshaya Patra midday-meal programme was also an activity of the Bengaluru branch that the group took over, and cited the public resignation of Mohandas Pai, whom he described as one of the founders of Infosys, and other businessmen from Akshaya Patra, who, he said, complained of a lack of transparency and of conflicts of interest “at a very large scale”, as reported by the Times of India.[1]
“They used the Bengaluru centre and the Akshaya Patra programme as a launchpad to carry out many of their other activities. They also have commercial companies… They have built an empire of at least ₹15,000 crore, which also includes real estate. Apartments are being built, villas are being built.”
Yudhistir Govinda Dasa to News24 (translated from Hindi) [1]
The same figure appears in the criminal case registered in Kolkata in April 2026, which, according to a press release issued for ISKCON on 15 October, values the religious and charitable assets allegedly diverted at about ₹15,000 crore.[5] No court has made any finding on these allegations.
Madhu Pandit Dasa and ISKCON Bangalore did not appear in the News24 report. As of 29 October 2026, 08:40 Brasília time, ISKCON Bangalore’s website had not responded to it; its most recent news item is from April 2026.[7] The society’s position is that the Supreme Court settled the question of ownership in May 2025, when it held ISKCON Bangalore to be a distinct society registered in Karnataka that owns the temple.[2]
A 51-minute video published on 24 October by Struggle for Truth, a channel that supports Madhu Pandit Dasa, answers the ₹15,000 crore allegation directly:
“All their allegations of fraud, which they are making now, raising a hue and cry of 15,000 crore rupees fraud, all the same allegations of fraud were dismissed by the Supreme Court in 2025. And Madhu Pandit Prabhu was given a clean chit based on all the evidence presented by both sides before the honourable Supreme Court.”
Struggle for Truth, YouTube, 24 October 2026 [3]
The video says that after the verdict Madhu Pandit Dasa offered to bring the group’s centres under the GBC, which the GBC rejected, and asks whether a fraud can have taken place at all if the accused offers to return what he is said to have taken. It calls the Kolkata complaint “trumped-up charges” and accuses ISKCON Mumbai of contradicting itself by telling the media in Kolkata that Akshaya Patra is a separate organisation while claiming it as its own before the police.[3]
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