SYED ASRAR AHMED Vs. DURGAH COMMITTEE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS appeal concerns a question of great importance to sections of the Muslim community in India and has been anxiously considered by their Lordships.

(2.) IN the year 1941 the appellant, Syed Asrar Ahmed, instituted a suit in the Court of the District Judge, Ajmer-Merwara, against the respondents, the Durgah Committee Ajmer, whose status will be explained, claiming a declaration that the office of Mutawalli of the Durgah Khawaja Sahib Ajmer was hereditary in his family and that the respondents were not competent to question his status as a hereditary Mutawalli in succession to the last holder of that office. The District Judge on July 31, 1942, made a decree in his favour, but upon appeal-to the Court of the Judicial Commissioner, Ajmer-Merwara, this decree was on February 23, 1944, reversed. Hence this appeal.

(3.) AURANGZEB, the last of the great Moghul Emperors, died in 1707, and thereafter there was a slow but steady break up of their Empire. Only 12 years after his death the Rajputs began their incursions into Moghul territory and in the year 1719 the Rathors, the head of which family now rules in Jodhpur, seized Ajmer and held it till 1721. In that year the Moghuls again asserted, their rights : they recaptured the city and remained there until 1743. Then once more the Rajputs took Ajmer and held it till 1756 when the Maratha Scindias of Gwalior came on the scene and, capturing Ajmer, remained as rulers until 1787. In that year the Rajput Rathors again seized the city and remained there till 1791 when they were once more ejected by the Scindias, who in their turn ruled until in 1818 Ajmer was ceded to the British Government