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RBI team fails to make inventory at Rumtek

A Reserve Bank of India team which came to Gangtok following a court's orders to make a quantitative inventory of the fabulous wealth of Sikkim's Rumtek Monastery, the headquarters of the Karma Kagyu sect, could not formulate the procedure.

Led by Vinod Kumar Sharma, RBI's regional director in Kolkata, the four-member team heard the respective counsels of the plaintiffs and defendants and discussed procedural formalities, official sources said.

District Judge (East/North) S W Lepcha on October 17 last year had appointed Sharma as the court commissioner.

The court had ordered Sharma to make an inventory of all Schedule A properties of the monastery.

Rumtek is considered to be the seat of boy monk Urgyen Trinley Dorje, who has been recognised by the Dalai Lama as the 17th Karmapa (reincarnate).

Urgyen Trinley Dorje had fled Tibet in January 2000.

The court order came on a civil suit filed on July 31, 1998 by the Karmapa Charitable Trust 1961, T S Gyaltsen, Shamar Rimpoche and Gyan Jyoti Kansakar against the state of Sikkim, the secretary of the state's Ecclesiastical Department, Gyaltsab Rimpoche and J T Densapa.

The court initially had given the RBI officer three months and allowed him to take the help of police, if needed.

The date of submission of reports was later extended to April 29.

According to the counsels for the two parties, the RBI team would reportedly have to come again to Gangtok to prepare the inventory. It was not known why the inventory could not be made during the team's current visit.

The RBI's regional director could not be contacted. He left Gangtok on Friday morning.

The court order for the inventory was considered significant as the monastery reportedly housed huge wealth and property, including the sapphire-studded sacred 'Vajra Mukut', considered the Karmapa's crown.

The total wealth of the monastery was believed to run into nearly $1.2 billion (Rs 5,860 crore).

The wealth in the monastery has never been touched by anyone other than the Karmapa. For anyone else other than the Karmapa to break the seal on these precious ancient relics was considered a violation of the Karma Kagyu protocol and would disrupt more than a thousand years of tradition.

The petitioners had sought restoration of status quo ante as prevailing on August 2, 1993, the day they were reportedly driven out of the monastery at the intervention of the state government and deployment of forces there after rival claimants to the seat surfaced.

On March 15, Sikkim Chief Minister Pawan Kumar Chamling had said for the first time, "My government recognises Urgyen Trinley Dorje as the genuine 17th Karmapa."

The Centre has not so far allowed Dorje and his co-claimant, Thaye Thinley Dorje, to visit Rumtek. The third one, based in Gangtok, was also not permitted to enter the monastery.

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