- (1.) Leave granted in the Special Leave Petitions.
(2.) The present appeals arise out of the impugned judgment and order dated 07.07.2009 passed in Original Jurisdiction Case No. 2421 of 2000 and other Writ Petitions which were disposed of in terms of the judgment dated 07.07.2009 by the High Court of Orissa at Cuttack, whereby the High Court allowed the Writ Petitions filed by the respondents herein and held that as the disputed land was earlier settled in the name of Shri Jagannath Mahaprabhu Bije Puri, Marfat Siddha Brundaban Ramanuj Das and thus, the subsequent settlement made in favour of the Temple Managing Committee in OEA Claim Case No. 68/90 was without jurisdiction.
(3.) As the facts in all the appeals are common, for the sake of convenience, we refer to the facts of Civil Appeal No. 7729 of 2009, which are stated in brief hereunder: The present case revolves around the ancient temple of Lord Jagannath of Puri. The lands in question have been accorded the status of 'amrutamanohi' properties. On 18.03.1974, the State Government of Orissa issued a notification under Section 3-A of the Orissa Estate Abolition Act, 1951(hereinafter referred to as the "OEA Act, 1951"), whereby the estate of Lord Jagannath Mahaprabhu Bije, Puri vested in the State Government. The vesting notification was challenged by the Temple before the High Court of Orissa in Original Jurisdiction Case No. 233 of 1977. The High Court rejected the claim of the Temple. The same was upheld by this Court vide its judgment in the case of Lord Jagannath through Jagannath Singri Narasingh Das Mahapatra Sridhar Panda and Ors v. State of Orissa, 1989 Supp1 SCC 553. We will advert to this judgment in detail at a later part of this judgment. The State Government of Orissa subsequently issued a notification dated 18.04.1989 and extended the time for filing claims under Section 8-A of the OEA Act, within which the Temple filed Claim Case No. 68 of 1990 for recording the lands in question in favour of Shree Jagannath Mahaprabhu Bije, Puri, Marfat Shree Jagannath Temple Managing Committee. Vide order dated 30.11.1992, the OEA Collector and Tahsildar, Puri observed that the suit lands in question have been recorded in the name of Shri Jagannath Mahaprabhu Bije, Srikhetra, and accordingly settled the suit lands in favour of the Temple. In the year 2000, the respondent-Math filed a Writ Petition before the High Court of Orissa at Cuttack in Original Jurisdiction Case No. 2421 of 2000, challenging the order of the Tahsildar dated 30.11.1992 on the ground that the lands in question have been accorded the status of 'amrutamanohi' and that they were recorded as Trust Estate as defined under Section 2(oo) of the OEA Act, 1951 and that lands had wrongly been settled in favour of the Temple. The High Court by the impugned judgment dated 07.07.2009 set aside the order of the Tahsildar dated 30.11.1992 and held as under: " it is seen in the instant case, the property has been dedicated as Amrutmonahi to Lord Sri Jagannath of Puri and the marfatdar of the property is Mahanta Siddha Brundaban Ramanuj Das. Thus, the property is attached with a charge of rendering service to Lord Jagannath by using the usufructs thereof as food offering to Lord Jagannath by using the usufructs threof as food offering to Lord Jagannath. It is further found that on the above analysis, the property cannot be held to be under the control of the administrator of Shri Jagannath Temple but is a trust property attached with a charge and the trustee has to fulfil the wish of the dedicator of the said property by offering the usufructs to Lord Jagannath as food offering. However, since the trustee/marfatdar is the Mahanta of Siddha Math, it cannot be said that the math has absolutely no interest over the said property just because it is recorded as Amrutmonohi. Applying the ratio of the decision in the case of Mahanta Shri Srinivas Ramanuj Das of the Supreme Court, it is seen that the Siddha Math is an institution, which comes within the definition of 'Math' as given in section 3 (vii) of the Orissa Hindu Religious Endowments Act, 1951. The property involved in this Writ Petition comes within the definition of "Trust Estate" as defined in section 2(oo) of the O.E.A Act and vested in the State Government pursuant to the notification made under Section 3-A of the O.E.A Act issued on 18.03.1974. It is also an admitted position that upon such vesting, the intermediary had a right to make an application under sections 6 and 7 of the O.E.A Act. As a matter of fact, as stated earlier, such application was made by the marfatdar of the property, i.e Mahanta of Siddha Math and the land was settled in the name of Shri Jagannath Mohaprabhu Bije, Puri marfat Mahanta Siddha Brundaban Ramanuj Das. Hence there was no scope for the administrator of Shri Jagannath Temple to make a subsequent application under sections 6 and 7 of the O.E.A Act for re-settlement of the land and the impugned order dated 30.11.1992 having been passed without jurisdiction cannot be sustained and the said order is accordingly quashed." Hence, the present appeals have been filed by the appellant Temple and State Government and others.;