- (1.)The question in this case is whether the appointment by the Temple Committee of defendants Nos. I and 2 as temporary additional trustees of the Srirangam temple is valid?
(2.)The scheme of management which was in existence at the time of the appointment in question was one that had boon sanctioned in 1842 by the Board of Revenue in pursuance of the policy thou adopted under the order of the Court of Directors with a view to the withdrawal of Government interference with the executive management of temple affairs. Under the orders of the Board of Revenue, dated the 6 October 1842, the management of the temple was entrusted to two trustees who were otherwise unconnected with the temple, and to the body of mirasi office holders in the temple, known as stalathars. As there were four families of stalathars it was arranged that one stalathar should act with the other trustees by yearly turns, such acting stalathar representing the whole body and conducting his duties in consultation, if necessary, with them.
(3.)We agree with the District Judge that the stalathar trustees were hereditary trustees. In the Proceedings of the Board of Revenue they are referred to as ex-officio trustees, and as already stated, their right to the office of stalathar is permanent and hereditary. The first objection taken by the vakil for the appellants is that it was not competent to the Board of Revenue to invest any body of persons with an hereditary right to the trusteeship. We are unable to accept this contention, At the time when the scheme was introduced it does not appear that any one possessed any right which would be interfered with by the scheme of the Board. The case was one in which it was competent to the Board of Revenue under Section 13 of Regulation VII of 1817 to make "such provision for the trust, management or superintendence as may to them seem right and fit, with reference to the nature and conditions of the endowment." Mr. Sivasawmy Ayyar's argument was that, under Section 2 of the Regulation, the superintendence of the temples was vested in the Board of Revenue, and that for the Board to create a body of hereditary trustees was to renounce a part of their duty under the section, and was therefore improper and illegal. But it is undoubted that the power of superintendence provided for by this section was not confined to institutions where tie trustees were not hereditary and, therefore, there is no necessary inconsistency between the exercise of the superintendence contemplated by that Section and the existence of hereditary trustees, whether appointed by the Board or otherwise existing. The question really turns upon the eject of Section 13. The words of that section already quoted axe wide and general, and, if in the opinion of the Board, it was desirable to introduce an hereditary element into the management of the temple, we can see no objection to their having done so. The ritual and other details connected with the worship in the temple are matters with which the management would properly concern itself.