The following statement was issued in response to a proposal submitted earlier by Madhu Pandit Dasa. For an explanation of the background and underlying issues it discusses, please read Bangalore Splinter Group Proposes Truce, GBC Responds.

Dear Madhu Pandit Prabhu,

Please accept our humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

The Executive Committee (EC) of the GBC has received your recent peace proposal for which we offer you our thanks. As your peace proposal reached us late, however, we could not discuss it during our recent GBC Annual General Meeting in Mayapur. The EC has since gone through your peace proposal and we have the following points to make:

1. We should be clear and honest about the legal disputes between us. The GBC has never filed any court cases against you. It was always you who filed cases against the GBC and ISKCON.
2. By ISKCON we mean a society registered by Srila Prabhupada in Mumbai in 1971. This is the only one ISKCON society in India authorized by Srila Prabhupada to propagate Hare Krishna Movement in India and the GBC is bound by that action of Srila Prabhupada. GBC therefore always recognized this ISKCON society registered in Mumbai as the only legitimate ISKCON society/entity in India.
3. The EC has been informed that in all the suits you filed in Bangalore City Civil court from 1999 till February 2001, you were the plaintiff, while ISKCON, the GBC and some ISKCON leaders were the defendants. In all these suits you stated under oath that the ISKCON temple situated at Hare Krishna Hill, Rajajinagar, Bangalore, is the property of the ISKCON society registered by Srila Prabhupada in 1971 in Mumbai.
4. The EC has been informed that you subsequently withdrew all the above stated suits and filed another Civil suit in October 2001, wherein an egregiously false claim was made that the ISKCON temple situated at Hare Krishna Hill, Rajajinagar, Bangalore, is the property of a different “ISKCON society” registered in Bangalore by Shankhabhrit Das in 1978.
   Not only is this false claim a direct contradiction to your prior sworn statements, such an action is harmful to ISKCON as a whole, not just the GBC, as ownership of ISKCON assets cannot be transferred in this manner from one entity to another. Such actions sow division and separation that distract from the purposes for which Srila Prabhupada founded ISKCON.
   The multiple legal suits you have brought against ISKCON amounts to an explicit attempt to get control of assets which loyal faithful ISKCON devotees have contributed. This is our issue with you, and this is the issue we are more than prepared to discuss.
5. The subject matter of all these suits is your attempt to take over the property, funds, etc. of the ISKCON temple situated at Hare Krishna Hill, Rajajinagar, Bangalore. The legal disputes are not disputes about establishment of the ritvik system, nor a dispute with respect to the “Direction of Management”, etc.
6. In light of the fact that the GBC has not initiated any legal proceedings against you, and in light of the fact that all the points of dispute stated by you in your peace proposal are not at all the subject matter of the legal battle between you and ISKCON, the GBC requests you to withdraw all current litigation lodged by you against ISKCON.
7. To once again be a part of ISKCON, you must acknowledge that being part of ISKCON means to be part of a united worldwide spiritual movement governed by the GBC–the body which Srila Prabhupada chose to secure and carry out his legacy.
8. Upon your doing the above, the GBC will always be ready to discuss and strive to resolve peacefully all the different points of dispute raised by you in your peace proposal.

Thank you very much.

Hare Krishna.

Your servants,

Romapada Swami, Madhu Sevita das, Hrdaya Caitanya das

Executive Committee of the ISKCON GBC Society