PARANKUSAM RANGACHARYULU AND ORS. Vs. PERNAMITTA VENKATANARASIMHAYYA, TRUSTEE OF SRI CHENNA KESAVASWAMI TEMPLE INCLUDING THE MINOR SHRINE SRI RANGANADHASWAMI AND ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THESE Civil Revision Petitions were preferred against the orders of the learned District Judge of Guntur (except C R.P. No. 1676 of 1947, in which the order was passed by the District Judge of Kistna) passed under Section 78 of the Madras Hindu Religious Endowments Act of 1926 (Act II of 1327) as amended by the Madras Hindu Religious Endowments (Amendment) Act of 1946 (Act X of 1946). As these revision petitions raised important questions of law regarding the interpretation of Section 78 of the Act as amended in 1946, my learned brother, Panchapagesa Sastri, J., referred them to a Bench, and they are now before us.

(2.) NINE applications were filed in the lower Court under Section 78 by the trustees appointed either by the Board or by the Assistant Commissioner having jurisdiction for delivery of possession of Immovable properties in the possession of the archakas who were the respondents in the petitions in the Court below and are the petitioners before us. The properties in question have been in continuous possession of the archakas for a considerably long period, and the claim by them was that the lands In dispute were granted to their predecessors in title burdened with service to the temples concerned while the trustees contended that they belonged to the temples. Besides this question of title to the property, there were other objections raised regarding maintainability of the petitions. The Court below overruled the contentions of the archakas and directed delivery of possession of the properties.

(3.) THE amended Section 78 requires, in case where the application is for possession of property, a certificate by the Board in such manner as may be prescribed. By the time these applications were disposed of, the Provincial Government under their rule -making power conferred upon them under Section 71 did not prescribe the rules governing the issue of such certificates; nor did they prescribe the form of the certificate. The trustees therefore obtained a certificate from the Board stating that the property in question belonged to the temple. One of the questions raised in the Court below and repeated before us was that this certificate does not fulfil the requirement of Section 78 as amended and that therefore the order for delivery made by the learned District Judge was incompetent. On behalf of the archakas it was also contended that the claim put forward by the trustees regarding the title to the property could not be tried in a summary proceeding under Section 78 of the Act and that such a dispute was entirely outside the purview of the section, particularly in view of the alterations made in that section by the amending Act X of 1946. In C.R.P. No. 1341 of 1946, a further point was also raised by the trustee that the application in that case was filed in the lower Court on 6th February, 1946, before the amendment came into force on 2nd April, 1946. It was therefore urged on behalf of the trustees that so far as this petition was concerned it was still governed by the procedure laid down by the unamended section and was not governed by the new section introduced by Act X of 1946. This contention will be dealt with separately.