NAWAB ZAIN YAR JUNG Vs. DIRECTOR OF ENDOWMENTS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal is directed against the order passed by the Andhra High Court dismissing an application for a writ filed by the appellants in that Court. The four appellants are the Trustees appointed by the Nizam of Hyderabad by a Trust-deed executed by him on June 14, 1954. On the 2nd March, 1959, respondent No. 1 who is the Director of Endowments and Joint Secretary, Board of Revenue, served a notice on the appellants calling upon them inter alia, to register the said Trust under the Hyderabad Endowment Regulation 1348-F (1939) and to render accounts of the same from the date of its inception to the date of the notice within a week. The appellants disputed the authority, of respondent No. 1 to issue the said notice and urged that the trust was not governed by the said Regulation. Thereupon, the first respondent issued an order on March 23, 1959 and in pursuance of it, sealed the Pay office of the said Trust. Subsequently, on the 25th March, 1959, the said seal was removed in pursuance of the order issued by the second respondent, the Government of Andhra Pradesh. The appellants then were called upon to produce their books of accounts in order that the first respondent may scrutinise them and ascertain all the relevant facts in respect of the Trust as required by R. 8 of the Rules framed under the said Regulation. The appellants were also directed not to operate upon the banks with which the moneys of the Trust were deposited and not to spend any sum on the objects of the Trust until further orders.

(2.) On March 24, 1959, appellants 1 to 3 filed the present writ petition and grayed inter alia that a writ of Prohibition and Certiorari or other writ or appropriate order or direction should be issued in respect of the notice served on them by the 1st respondent on March 2, 1959 and his subsequent order of March 23, 1959. The 4th appellant was subsequently appointed an additional trustee and was thereafter added as a petitioner of the said petition on October 12,1959.

(3.) In their writ petition, the appellants alleged that the said Regulation had ceased to be operative in Hyderabad by reason of S. 6 of Part B States {Laws) Act 1951 (No. III of 1951) which had been extended to Hyderabad as from April 1, 1951. S. 6 of the said Act provides that if Immediately before the appointed day, there was in force in any Part B State any law corresponding to any of the Acts or ordinances now extended to that State, that shall, save as otherwise expressly provided, stand repealed. Amongst the laws extended to Hyderabad by the said Act were the Indian Trusts Act, 1882, Charitable Endowments Act (VI of 1890) and Charitable and Religious Trusts Act (XIV of 1920). Subsequently, by Central Act II of 1951, the Civil Procedure Code was made applicable to Hyderabad and S. 92 of the said Code thus applied to proceedings contemplated by it. The appellants urged that the aforesaid laws which were thus extended to Hyderabad corresponded to the Hyderabad Endowments Regulation and so, by virtue of the provisions of S. 6 of the Part B States (Laws) Act, the said Regulation stood repealed as from April 1, 1951. According to the appellants, the said Regulation and the Rules framed thereunder were ultra vires also for the reason that they were violative of the fundamental rights guaranteed by Arts. 14,19 and 31 of the Constitution. It is broadly on these grounds that the appellants based their claim for an appropriate writ against both the respondents.