HATHIYA RAM MATH Vs. BHAWANI NANDAN YATI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The present writ petition is directed against an order dated 26.11.1999 (as per Annexure 6 to the writ petition) recorded by the District Judge. Ghazipur, with a prayer for a writ of certiorari to quash the same.

(2.) The present petitioner No. 2 filed a suit on behalf of petitioner No. 1, which a math, on an assertion that the math was an ancient one of Dasnami ascetics and was an autonomous institution bound by its age-old traditions. The petitioner No. 2 was the mahant of the math appointment in the year 1954 by the erstwhile head of the math. In the suit against the present respondent a relief of permanent injunction was sought to restrain him from interfering in the functioning of the petitioner No. 2 as the mahant of the concerned math and not to interfere in the movable and immovable properties of the math in any manner. The trial Judge recorded an order of injunction after recording findings in favour of the plaintiff on the questions of a prima facie case, balance of convenience as also irreparable loss. An appeal was preferred by the respondent before the District Judge in Misc. Appeal No. 22 of 1997 and the impugned order was passed setting aside the order of the trial Court granting ad-interim injunction.

(3.) It appears from the averments made in the plaint that the respondent was appointed the mahant by petitioner No. 2, who was the then head of the math, on 23.2.1996 and he was put on the gaddi on that date itself. There was a subsequent deed of Will dated 21.3.1996 executed by petitioner No. 2 incorporating certain conditions under which the respondent would work and this paper also indicated when and how the respondent could be removed from the post of mahant. It was the case in the plaint that due to his action, detrimental to the interest of the math and against the tenents of the age-old traditions thereof, the respondent was removed from the rest of mahant of the math by petitioner No. 2 and subsequently, the Sadhu Samaj the brotherhood of the ascetics, had appointed the erstwhile mahant only as the mahant for the math.