Thaindian News

Hyderabad, July 11 (IANS) The Sri Sathya Sai Central Trust, which manages the affairs of late Sathya Sai Baba’s spiritual empire, Monday submitted a detailed report to the Andhra Pradesh government on its functioning as well as financial details.

Responding to the government’s notice, the trust submitted the report to endowments secretary K.V. Ramnachari.

The report contains details of the trust’s finances, its activities, revenues, institutions run by it, members of the trust, their addresses and their professions.

The trust has also reportedly provided details of the trust’s objectives, its day-to-day functioning, details of the officials who run the trust and various institutions, assets, income and expenditure.

The report also contains details of the trust’s bank accounts, the subsidies given by the central government, exemptions from income tax regulations and also the names and other details of its auditors.

Officials said the government would evaluate the report before taking a decision on the demands from a section of devotees to take-over the trust or at least set up a mechanism to monitor the trust.

It was on June 27 that the government had asked the trust to submit the report in 10 days. The move came amid allegations that the trust members are involved in financial irregularities.

It is for the first time in nearly four decades that the government intervened in the affairs of the trust. The trustees were facing allegations of irregularities after Sathya Sai Baba’s demise on April 24.

Anantapur police had last month seized Rs.35 lakh from a car and arrested three people, who revealed that they were transporting the cash from Baba’s ashram in Puttaparthi to Bangalore on the directions of two trust members.

Though the trust has claimed that the money was donated by some devotees for building Sathya Sai Baba’s samadhi, the police are continuing the probe amid allegations that huge cash and valuables were shifted out of the ashram.