SRINIVASA REDDIAR Vs. N RAMASWAMY REDDIAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The present appeal has been brought to this Court by special leave and it arises from a suit filed by the appellants against four respondents. The properties involved in the suit consist of agricultural lands situated in Eragudi village, Musiri taluk, Tiruchirappalli district. According to the appellants, the said lands had been granted in Inam to the ancestor of one Ambalathadum Pachai Kandai Udayavar by the Carnatic Rulers before the advent of the British power in India. The original grant-deeds are not available; but at the time of the settlement of the Inams in the sixties of the last century, Inam title deeds were issued in favour of the family of Pachai Kandai Udayavar. The appellants averred that the properties covered by the grant had been granted in Inam to the original grantee burdened with the obligation of performing certain services in a Matam. The said properties were alienated from time to time, and as a result of the last alienation, the appellants became entitled to them. The appellants in the present litigation claimed a declaration about their title to the properties in suit and a permanent injunction restraining respondents 1 to 3, who claimed to be the trustees of an alleged Pachai Kandai Udayavar Temple at Eragudi, from interfering with their possession of the same. Respondent No. 4 is the Deputy Commissioner, Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments, Tiruchirapalli, and he has been impleaded because he has purported to appoint respondents 1 to 3 as trustees of the said alleged Temple on the 7th March 1951. This suit (No. 103 of 1954) was instituted on the 13th September 1954, under S. 87 of the Madras Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Act (No. XIX of 1951) (hereinafter called 'the Act'), in the Court of the District Munsif at Turaiyur.

(2.) Respondents 1 to 3 who have been appointed as trustees of the said temple by respondent No. 4, obtained a certificate from him that the properties in question belonged to the Temple; and on the basis of the said certificate, they had filed an application before the Magistrate having jurisdiction in the area under S. 87 of the Act for possession. Notice of this application was served on the appellants and they pleaded their own title to the properties. The Magistrate, however, overruled the claim made by the appellants and directed them to deliver possession of the properties to respondents 1 to 3. Before this order could be executed and possession delivered to respondents 1 to 3, the appellants instituted the present suit.

(3.) Respondents 1 to 3 resisted this suit and contended that the properties in suit had not been granted to the predecessor of Pachai Kandai Udayavar as alleged by the appellants. Their case was that the said properties had been granted to the Pachai Kandai Udayavar Temple and formed part of its properties. As trustees appointed by respondent No. 4, they claimed that they were entitled to the possession of the properties.