- (1.) This appeal on a certificate granted by the High Court of Patna is from a judgment of the said High Court dated September 13, 1954, in a writ proceeding numbered as Miscellaneous Judicial Case No. 39 of 1954 in that court, which the appellant had instituted on an application made under Art. 226 of the Constitution in the circumstances stated below.
(2.) It was alleged that one Mahatma Mast Ramji, a Hind saint, owned and possessed considerable properties in the district of Monghyr in the State of Bihar. About two hundred years ago, he built a small temple at Salouna in which he installed a deity called Sri Thakur Lakshmi Narainji. This temple came to be known as the Salouna asthal. Mast Ramji died near about the year 1802. He was succeeded in turn by some of his disciples, one of whom was Mahant Lakshmi Dasji. He built a new temple in 1916 into which he removed the deity from the old temple and installed two new deities, Sri Ram and Sita. In 1919 Mahant Lakshmi Dasji died. He left three disciples, Vishnu Das, Bhagwat Das and Rameshwar Das. A dispute arose among these disciples about succession to the gaddi, which was settled sometime in February 1919. By that settlement it was arranged that Vishnu Das would succeed Mahant Lakshmi Das as the shebait and would be succeeded by Bhagwat Das, and thereafter the ablest "bairagi" of the asthal, born of Brahmin parents, would be eligible for appointment as shebait. Bhagwat Das died sometime in 1935 and again a dispute arose between one Rameshwar Das, the youngest chela of Mahant Lakshmi Das, and Ram Saroop Das who is the present Mahant and appellant before us. Rameshwar Das, it appears, filed an application under the Charitable and Religious Trusts Act (XIV of 1920) for a direction upon Mahant Ram Saroop Das to render an account of the usufruct of the asthal. This application was contested by Mahant Ram Saroop Das, who said that the properties appertaining to the Salouna asthal did not constitute a public 1959 S. C. D.F.60(2) and 61(1) trust within the meaning of the provision of the Charitable and Religious Trusts Act (XIV of 1920) and therefore he was not aecountable to any person. Mahant Ram Saroop Das also applied for and obtained permission under S. 5 of the aforesaid Act to institute a suit for a declaration that the Salouna asthal and the properties thereof did not constitute a public trust. Such a suit was brought in the Court of the Subordinate Judge of Monghyr who, however, dismissed the suit. Then, there was an appeal to the High Court of Patna and by the judgment and decree passed in First Appeal 10 of 1941 dated March 5, 1943, the High Court gave a declaration to the effect that the Salouna astha1 and the properties appertainining thereto did not constitute a public trust within the meaning of the provisions of the Charitable and Religious Trusts Act (XIV of 1920). Some eight years later, the Bihar Hindu Religious Trusts Act, 1950 (Bihar 1 of 1951), hereinafter referred to as the Act, was passed by the Bihar Legislature and received the President's assent on February 21, 1951. It came into force on August 15, 1951. The Bihar State Board of Religious Trusts (one of the respondents before us) was constituted under this Act to discharge in regard to religious trusts other than Jain religious trusts the functions assigned to it under the several provisions of the Act. On November 14, 1952, this Board, in exercise of the powers conferred on it under S. 59 of the Act, asked the appellant to furnish to the Board a return of the income and expenditure of the asthal. The appellant replied by a letter dated December 1, 1952, that the Salouna asthal was a private institution to which the Act did not apply, and also drew the attention of the Board to the judgment and decree of the High Court in First Appeal No. 10 of 1941. The Board, however, gave a reply to the effect that it was not bound by the declaration made by the High Court and asked the appellant to obtain a declaration in respect of his claim under the provisions of the Act or to submit a return. Thereafter, on January 22, 1954, the appellant made his application under Art. 226 of the Constitution in which he averred (a) that the Salouna asthal was not a religious trust within the meaning of the Act; (b) that the properties appertaining thereto did not constitute a religious trust and the appellant was not a trustee within the meaning of the Act; (c) that the Act did not apply to private trusts; and (d) that the demand made by the respondent Board amounted to an interference with the appellant's fundamental right to hold the asthal properties. The appellant accordingly prayed for the issue of a writ quashing the order of the respondent Board requiring the appellant to submit a return of income and expenditure and also for an order directing the respondent Board and its officers to refrain from interfering with the appellant in his right of management of the Salouna asthal and the properties appertaining thereto.
(3.) The High Court of Patna by its judgment complained against dismissed the petition on the main ground that the language of S. 2 (1) of the Act, which defined a 'religious trust' for the purposes of the Act, was wide enough to cover within its ambit both private and public trusts recognised by Hindu law to be religious, pious or charitable and that the Salouna asthal did not come within any of the two exceptions recognised by the section, namely, (1) a trust created according to Sikh religion or purely for the benefit of the Sikh community; and (2) a private endowment created for the worship of a family idol in which the public are not interested. The High Court also held that the materials on the record were not sufficient to decide the question whether the Salouna asthal and the properties thereof constituted a religious trust of a public character; but proceeding on the footing that the Act applied to private trusts, it expressed the view that the restrictions imposed on the trustee by the several provisions of the Act were not violative of the fundamental right guaranteed under Art. 19(1)(f) of the Constitution, inasmuch as there was no legal reason why the State should not exercise superintendence and control over the administration of private trusts as in the case of public trusts. In a judgment dated October 5, 1953, dealing with the same question in some earlier cases, the High Court had, however, expressed a somewhat different view. It had then referred to the principle that when a Legislature with limited power makes use of a word of wide and general import, the presumption must be that it is using the word with reference to what it is competent to legislate, and adopting that principle it said that S. 2 (1) of the Act should be read in a restricted sense so as to include only Hindu religious or charitable trusts of a public character and the provisions of the Act would accordingly apply to such trusts only.;