VITTALA SHENOI Vs. COCHIN DEVASWOM BOARD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The two petitioners and others made three applications, Exts. R 1 to R 3, to the Cochin Devaswom Board, the first respondent, for a declaration under S.114 of the Travancore-Cochin Hindu Religious Institutions Act, 1950, which may be referred to hereafter as the Act, that the Azheekal Sri Varaha Devaswom Temple, which may be referred to hereafter as the Temple, is not an 'institution' within the meaning of the Act. S.114, sub-s.(1), (2) and (3) of the Act reads as follows:

(2.) It was contended, that the declaration amounted to a finding on a jurisdictional issue and that therefore this court is bound to review the evidence upon which the first respondent has reached this conclusion as a court of fact would do. I cannot accede to this contention, for two reasons, first, that in the form and context in which the matter has come up before me now, no jurisdictional issue is involved and secondly, though certiorari cannot be excluded by sub-s.(1) and (2) of S.114 of the Act, a certain measure of finality is attached to the declaration under S.114. The prayer in the petition being only to quash Ext. P. 1 and, as admitted in paragraph 10(6) of the petitioners' affidavit, there being no substantive proceedings pending before the first respondent, the declaration now made is not related to any pending proceeding. What is meant by a jurisdictional fact may be understood from the following passage in Raman & Raman Ltd. v. State of Madras, AIR 1956 SC 463 :

(3.) It also seems to me that this is eminently a fit case in which, as prescribed by the legislature itself, a civil suit, rather than a proceeding under Article 226, is the appropriate remedy, for, the first respondent cannot be deemed to be a party to the proceeding in which the declaration was made, but was a Tribunal vested with the power to decide. I think this case comes within the scope of the rule evolved in Union of India v. T. R. Varma, AIR 1957 SC 882 , that where there is "a question on which there is a serious dispute, which cannot be satisfactorily decided without taking evidence........it would have been a proper exercise of discretion in the present case if the learned Judges (of the High Court) had referred the respondent to a suit". But it was contended, that notwithstanding these observations in the case cited, the Supreme Court went into the question of fact and decided it; this was partly because the High Court had unjustifiably, in the opinion of the Supreme Court, decided the matter on the merits and the order of the High Court had to be reversed. The period of six months for a suit prescribed under S.114 of the Act has no doubt elapsed. But this, in my opinion, does not furnish a ground for interference under Article 226. In view of the right of suit conferred by S.62 of the Madras Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Act, 1951, the Madras High Court also declined to interfere under Article 226 in K. Subramania Chettiar v. Commissioner for Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments, AIR 1958 Mad. 501 . The procedure for making a declaration under S.114 of the Act is summary in character, and I come to the conclusion, that it is not proper to interfere under Article 226.