SHAHZAD KUNWAR DECEASED AND AFTER HER LEGAL REPRESENTATIVE LALLI BIBI ALIAS BALLO BIBI Vs. RAJA RAM KARAN BAHADUR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Brindaban in northern India is rich in temples. Amongst the many temples that adorn this holy place of the vaishnavas is a temple of Thakur Radha Manoharji. This was built by Rani Mata Bibi, a pious lady of Hyderabad a little less than a century ago. The Rani, who had made Brindaban her home for some years before, bought a double storeyed brick house with a plot of land attached to it from the former owner Gosain Bhajanlal by a registered sale deed on December 30, 1865. soon after her purchase she built thereon a temple and installed in it the idol of Thakur Radha Manoharji. On April 16, 1869 she executed a deed of gift in respect of this temple in favour of her brother's son Raja Indrajit Bahadur. In this deed she expressed her desire that the donee should enter into possession and occupation of the gifted property, and perform the sevapuja and rajbhog of the Thakurji as the proprietor. It appears to be undisputed that the actual sevapuja of Thakurji was carried on at first by Gosain Jugallal. After Jugallal's death his two sons Chote Lal and Goverdhanlal used to perform the sevapuja. Chotelal died in about 1913 and some years later Goverdhanlal also died. When both of them were dead their widows carried on the sevapuja. After some years Goverdhanlal's widow also died. Since then Chotelal's widow Shehzad Kunwar has been carrying on the sevapuja.

(2.) The controversy that has arisen is whether Shehzad Kunwar is herself the Shebait of the deity or whether, as is the plaintiff's case, (supra) Raja Dharam Karan is the Shebait, and Shehzad Kunwar has been carrying on the sevapuja and looking after the property only as the Raja's agent and the appointed pujari.

(3.) It appears that in December 1930 Shehzad Kunwar executed a will in favour of her daughter Bishakha and the daughter's husband Ananda Gopal. In this will she asserted a proprietary right to the temple of Radha Manoharji though stating at the same time that the management of the temple was carried on under her mutwaliship. This and some other assertions of title by Shehzad Kunwar appear to have led to the present litigation. The first plaintiff Raja Dharam Karan Bahadur claims to be the Shebait of the idol Radha Manoharji. The second plaintiff is the idol itself. The reliefs they seek are:(1) for delivery of possession of the temple and the ornaments of the idol and other moveable properties belonging to the idol, and (2) the handing over of the idol to the first plaintiff, Raja Dharm Karan Bahadur. Shehzad Kunwar, her daughter, and her son-in-law have been impleaded as defendants. The first defendant Shehzad Kunwar, who alone contested the suit denied Raja Dhararn Karan's claim to Shebaitship and pleaded that Thakur Radha Manoharji was an ancestral idol of Jugallalji and neither Raja Indrajit Bahadur nor any of his descendants became its Shebait. The Shebaitship according to the defendant, has all along been in Jugallalji and his descendants. Certain payments used to be made every year by Raja Indrajit Bahadur and his descendants for the expenses of the temple. These however gave them no right to the temple nor made them the Shebaits of the idol. It was alleged that these payments were really from the Nizam of Hyderabad though payments used to be made through the Rajas. Another plea raised by the defendant was that in any case the plaintiff No. 1 or his predecessors had not been in possession of the temple in dispute or the office of Shebaitship at any time within 12 years next before the suit and so their claim was barred by limitation and that the defendant No. 1 had acquired a right of Shebaitship of Radha Manoharji and title to the temple by adverse possession. Certain other pleas which were raised need not be mentioned is they no longer survive after the decisions of the courts below.