Saibaba temple to auction gold, silver donated by devotees in October 2012 - cancelled after High Court Stay

 

The Shirdi Saibaba Sansthan Trust has announced that in October they will be auctioning of a part of the gold, silver and diamonds donated by the devotees. According to Sansthan's executive officer Kishor More, there was 280 kg of gold and 3,000 kg of silver with the trust, of which 37 kg gold and 516 kg silver had been sent to Mumbai for melting. Some of the remaining gold and silver along with diamonds would be auctioned. The details would be available on the temple's website.


Update:
Shirdi (Maharashtra), Oct 16 (IANS) The auction of offerings at the Saibaba Temple here, scheduled in three phases starting Thursday (Oct 18), has been cancelled after the Bombay High Court stayed the process, a temple trust official said.
"The Bombay High Court has stayed the proposed auction and accordingly it has been cancelled until further orders of the court," said an official of Shri Saibaba Sansthan Trust (SSST).
The official declined to give more details of the cancellation of the auction, which had generated tremendous enthusiasm among Shirdi Saibaba's devotees in India and abroad.
Now, it will be conducted at a later date after the permission of the high court, the official added.
Valuable gold and silver crowns, statues, garlands, padukas, necklaces, coins, diamonds and precious stones and other articles offered at the Saibaba Temple by devotees were due to be auctioned this week onwards at the temple premises.
The proposed auction - the third of its kind in the past decade and the second in five years - had included 32 kg of silver offerings, 18 kg of gold offerings and 52 precious stones or articles studded with precious stones.