MAHANTH SUDARSAN DAS Vs. MAHANTH RAM KIRPAL DAS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THESE are two appeals from the High Court of Judicature at Patna. They have been consolidated, and the central point upon which each appeal turns is the same : which of the parties is to be treated as the lawful owner of the piece of property in dispute? That piece of property is a four annas undivided share out of a fourteen annas partitioned share of an estate called Touzi No.7898 in Mouza Awari, Pargana Lautana, District Darbhanga, and it is hereinafter referred to as "the disputed property. "

(2.) THE two suits out of which the appeals arise were respectively a partition suit, (No.89 of 1932) filed by the appellant on September 16, 1982, and a title suit (No.72 of 1933) filed by the respondents in the second appeal on November 7, 1933. THE appellant, who is the mahanth of a math or asthal called the Birpur Asthal, sought by the partition suit to obtain a declaration of his title to the, disputed property and an order for partition of the lands of which that property was an undivided share. He was met by a defence on the part of those respondents who formed the defendants first party to his suit to the effect that on various grounds, some of which will be noticed later, he had no title to the disputed property. THEse respondents were the mahanth and the deities (acting- through the mahanth) of another math or asthal known as the Pokrauni Asthal, and it was they who instituted the title suit in which they asked for a declaration against the appellant that the disputed property is debottar property of the Pokrauni Astha) and that the appellant had no right to any interest in it. As it is plain that the real question at issue is, to which of these two religious institutions does the disputed property belong, it will be convenient to use the term respondents to refer to the respondents Mahanth Ramfcirpal Das and the idols Sri Thakurji, Ramji, Lachhmanji and Jankiji.

(3.) IN the year 1918 a suit (No.1 of 1918) was instituted against Damodar Das in the Court of the District Judge at Darbhanga. It was a suit under the provisions of Section 92 of the Code of Civil Procedure and in it Rajkumar Das, a former claimant to the office of mahant then held by Damodar Das, and certain other persons interested in the proper administration of the Pokrauni Asthal claimed that Damodar Das ought to be removed from the mahantship, a new mahant appointed in his place, and a scheme of administration settled by the Court for the asthal. It is not necessary to go into the details of these proceedings. IN the end, on March 16, 1922, judgment was delivered in the District Court holding that the properties of the asthal were not debottar and that, accordingly, the Court was not entitled to entertain the suit under Section 92. An appeal from this decision was taken to the High Court, but while the appeal was still pending, Damodar Das died, being succeeded in the mahantship by the present respondent Ramkirpal Das, and Rajkumar Das abandoned the appeal.