T.K. SANTHANAGOPALA CHETTIAR AND ORS. Vs. THIMMI M. SEETHARAMA CHETTIAR AND ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) RESPONDENTS 1 and 2 herein instituted O.S. No. 359 of 1965 on the file of the Court of the District Munsif, Kumbakonam, for " (a) declaring that Sri Rajagopalaswami Temple set out in Schedule ' A' and its properties set out in Schedules ' B ' and ' C ' exclusively belong to Pattusaluvar community residents of Solamaligai Village and directing the defendants 1 to 3 to put the plaintiffs in possession of the same; (b) directing the defendants 1 and 2 to render a true and proper account of their management as trustees of the suit temple from the date of their appointment, viz., 14th April, 1959 till this date (date of plaint) and pay plaintiffs for the use of the said temple such amounts as may be found due by them on taking of account." The basis of this prayer was that the temple belonged to members of Pattusaluvar community exclusively and they alone owned the temple and were worshipping the deities of the temple; it is a private temple which belonged to that community residents of the village and nobody else had any right of worship or in the properties acquired for the said temple; the Pattusaluvar community people are the hereditary adeenakarthars of the said temple and the members of the community nominated by them are the hereditary trustees of the suit temple. Defendants 1 and 2 (appellants 1 and 2) were appointed as trustees for the suit temple by the members of the Pattusaluvar community residents of the said village for a period of three years ending with 14th April, 1962; subsequently defendants 1 and 2 nurturing some grievance against other members of the community got themselves, along with the 3rd defendant, (3rd appellant) appointed as trustees of the temple by the Area Committee under the provisions of the Madras Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Act, 1959; the 3rd defendant does not belong to Pattusaluvar community, he is a Padayachi and he has no right to worship in the suit temple or in the administration of the affairs of the temple. On these allegations and on the basis of the contention that the provisions of the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Act are not applicable to the said institution, the suit was instituted. To the suit, in addition to the defendants 1, 2 and 3, a lessee in respect of certain properties was impleaded as the fourth defendant and the Area Committee was impleaded as the fifth defendant and the Commissioner, Madras Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments, was impleaded as the sixth defendant.

(2.) IN the written statement filed by the defendants, a plea was raised as to the maintainability of the suit. On the basis of the said plea, the learned District Munsif framed two questions for the purpose of preliminary determination, they being (1) whether the suit is entertainable in the civil Court in View of the provisions of the Madras Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Act? and (2) Whether the suit is bad for want of notice under Section 80, Civil Procedure Code, to defendants 5 and 6? The learned District Munsif, by his judgment and decree dated 1 17th September, 1964 found in favour of the appellants on both these points. He came to the conclusion that whether the suit temple was a religious institution coming within the scope of the Act or not was a matter left to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Deputy Commissioner under Section 63 (a) read with Section 108 of the Act and the absence of notice under Section 80 of the Civil Procedure Code to defendants 5 and 6 rendered the suit not maintainable.

(3.) AGAINST this judgment of the learned District Munsif, the plaintiffs preferred A.S. No. 103. of 1964 on the file of the Court of Subordinate Judge, Kumbakonam The learned Subordinate Judge by his judgment and order dated 26th July, 1965, set aside the judgment and decree of the learned District Munsif and remanded the suit for fresh disposal according to law and in the light of his observations in the judgment. With regard to the first question, the learned Subordinate Judge, relying upon a Bench decision of this Court reported in Dr. Ananda Baliga v. Ananteswar Temple (1952) 1 M.L.J. 678, came to the conclusion that the suit was maintainable in the civil Court. With regard to the second point, though the learned Subordinate Judge expressed his opinion that a notice under Section 80, Civil Procedure Code, was not necessary to defendants 5 and 6, since the sixth defendant was a Corporation sole and the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Act was a self -contained enactment laying procedure for all contingencies and that Act does not contain any provisions stipulating the issue of a notice as a condition precedent, still he stated that he refrained from giving a finding on this point in view of the order of remand he was passing.