- (1.)The lands of both the plaintiff and defendant temples were formerly in the possession of the same trustee, but on his death in 1894, new trustees of the defendant temple were appointed. No trustees of the plaintiff temple were appointed until 1900, but it is found that the son-in-law of the former trustee continued to manage the lands and did poojah, in the temples and he was also the servant of the trustees of the defendant temple and that the latter exercised certain acts of ownership in respect of the lands and appropriated the rent. Since, however, there were no properly constituted trustees of the plaintiff temple, there was no person with knowledge of the acts of the defendants or capable of taking proceedings necessary for the protection of the suit property and, therefore, possession was not adverse until the appointment of trustees in 1900. [See Jagadindra Nath Roy v. Hemanta Kumari Debi 32 C. 129 : 7 Bom. L.R. 765 : 31 I.A. 202 : 8 C.W.N. 809 : 1 A.L.J. 585 and Peria Aiya Ambalam v. Shunmugasundaram 22 Ind. Cas. 615 : 38 M. 903 : 15 M.L.T. 112 : 26 M.L.J. 140 : (1914) M.W.N. 417 : 1 L.W. 119.]
(2.)The defendants adverse possession, therefore, commenced within twelve years prior to the suit, and the plaintiffs are entitled to succeed on the title which has been found by the lower Courts.
(3.)As regards the point argued with reference to Section 10 of the Limitation Act, a new trustee succeeds to the office of a former trustee, not to him personally, and cannot be said to be his legal representative or assign within the meaning of that section and the defendants are not the legal successors of the former trustees of the plaintiff temple.