JAYARAMA NAIDU Vs. TIRUPATHI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) FIRST defendants appeals from a reversing judgment of Ramakrishnan, J. He allowed the respondent's suit for recovery of possession of the plaint schedule properties in their capacity that they were sole surviving trustees of a private family trust under which the properties had been endowed. One Srinivasa Naidu purchased in 1881 the plaint schedule properties and constituted the same, as we were told, as a trust or endowment for performance of certain objects. What precisely are the terms of the trust, are yet to be ascertained. The founder nominated his brother's son, Nayeena, to succeed him as a trustee, but made no further provision for devolution. Nayeena died in 1908, Parankusam, the son of srinivasa Naidu, succeeded to the office and held it between 1922 and 1936. He died in 1936 leaving his widow Govindammal and a will Ex. B-2. He nominated her to be the trustee after his lifetime and provided further that she might, according to her will and pleasure, nominate any one as a trustee to succeed her to perform the objects of the trust. She accordingly nominated her sister's son by a will and died on 28-11-1958. We may in passing notice that because Parankusam was a minor, Parthasarathi, the eldest son of Sami who was a brother of Srinivasa, held the office until 1921. The respondents, sons of Ramanujam who was the third son of Sami, instituted the suit claiming that after the lifetime of Govindammal they were entitled to succeed to the trusteeship. The first court dismissed the suit on the view that the will of Govindammal dated 17-8-1955 by which she made the nomination in favour of her sister's son was valid. But on appeal, Ramakrishnan, I took a contrary view.

(2.) IN our opinion, with due respect to Ramakrishnan, J. his view cannot be supported. He has, right through his judgment, proceeded on the basis that the trust in this case was property. Mr. T. R. Srinivasan, for the respondents, says that the beneficial interests in the trust properties was attached to the trusteeship. No such suggestion has been made at any stage, either at the trial or in the appeal before Ramakrishnan, J. The learned Judge took the trusteeship itself, irrespective of whether the beneficial interest was attached or not, as property and considered that to such property the rules of succession under the Hindu law applied. On that process of reasoning he thought that neither Parankusam nor Govindammal was competent to alienate the office treated as property belonging to the family of srinivasa. In the view of the learned Judge, after the death of Govindammal the office of trusteeship reverted to the family of the founder which meant that the respondents would be entitled to succeed to the office.

(3.) IT appears to us to be well established by now that a bare trusteeship to which only duties are attached which is in this part of our country known as dharmakarthaship, is not property in any sense of the term unlike Shebait in bengal. K. A. Samajam v. Commissioner, H. R. and C. E. Hyderabad, held that the office of hereditary trustee was not property within the meaning of Art. 19 (1) (f ). The Supreme Court did not agree with the earlier view that such an office was itself property within the meaning of the Article if no emoluments were attached to it. The distinction between a Mahant and a Shebait in whose offices are blended not merely duties but personal interest in the trust property on the one hand and a mere office of trusteeship to which only duties are attached, was drawn. In Manathunainatha Desikar v. Sundaralinga, 1970-2 Mad LJ 156 = (AIR 1971 Mad 1) (FB) to which one of us was a party, it was held that the dharmakartha or Manager of a temple who had no emoluments attached to his office but only duties to discharge had no personal interest of beneficial character in the institution and that the office of Dharmakartha, though a highly prized office, could not be consider to be property when no material benefits were attached even apart from the context of Art. 19 (1) of the Constitution. It follows, therefore, that the approach to the case made by Ramakrishnan, J. as if the office of trusteeship to which only duties are attached and no beneficial interest attached to the office was itself property, cannot be supported.