NARANAMANGALATH MANAKKAL PARAMESWARAN NAMBUDIRIPAD Vs. KUTTAH NARAYANAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This petition raises a question of the scope of Section 6 of Madras Act, V of 1947, which authorised, entry into Hindu temples and the offer of worship therein by certain classes of Hindus who by custom or usage were previously excluded from such entry and worship. Section 3 of the Act declared the rights of excluded classes to enter into a Hindu temple and offer worship therein and also the right to bathe in any sacred tank situated within or outside the precincts of the temple. The petitioner is the defendant in a suit filed by the respondents who have made no appearance on this petition. They are two Thias, one Numbudiri Brahmin and two Nayars, who joined in a suit to enforce the right of entry into the temple and to bathe in a tank attached to it impleading the petitioner as the defendant. The petitioner pleaded that the temple was a private one belonging to his family and also inter alia that under Section 6, the Court was bound to refer for the determination of the Provincial Government the question raised on his written statement, viz., whether the place in question was or was not a temple as defined in the Act. On a preliminary issue, the learned District Munsif held that Section 6 was not a bar to the maintainability of the suit.

(2.) Section 6 reads as follows :

(3.) There appears to have been no suit notice issued by the plaintiffs to defendant, before the suit was instituted, filed. A regrettable characteristic of such litigation is the absence of any preliminary correspondence between the lawyers on both sides with a view to bring the parties, if possible, together. In this case, a suit appears to have been filed by the plaintiffs without any notice of suit at all. The result has been that the avenue of Section 6, which ought and could have been explored before a suit was filed has been grossly neglected by both sides. While deprecating the impulsiveness of the vakil for the plaintiffs in rushing to Court with this suit, I see no grounds for any interference with the order passed by the learned District Munsif which appears to me correctly to interpret the scope of Section 6.