BHEEMESWARASWAMI TEMPLE VUNGUTUR Vs. PEDAPUDI VENKATA SATYANARAYANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal against the Judgment of the Subordinate Judge, Eluru in O.S. No. 121 of 1954. The plaintiff is the appellat : Sri Bheemeswaraswami temple, Vungutur, represented by the Chairman, Board of Trustees, Sri Chode Kamaraju. The suit was laid on loth October, 1953, for possession of the alleged temple's lands, A Schedule lands which are situated at Vungutur and B Schedule lands which are situated at Nachugunta, a hamlet of Vungutur. The A Schedule comprises of four items and B Schedule also comprises of four items. The archakas of the temple were impleaded as defendants 1 to 7. The persons in possession, some of whom claimed as alienees from the archakas and others who claimed as tenants under the archakas, were impleaded as defendants 8 to 39. The plaintiff succeeded in respect of items 3 and 4 of A Schedule and all the four items of B Schedule. The suits was dismissed in regard to items 1 and 2 of A Schedule. This appeal therefore concerns those items only in respect of which the plaintiff failed.

(2.) The case of the plaintiff is that the lands are ' Devadayam inam lands which belonged to Sri Bheemeswaraswami temple at Vungutur.' The lands were granted to the deity and they are registered in the accounts in the name of the deity. The archakas were mismanaging the temple's lands of which they were in possession and misappropriated the income therefrom. The defendants did not deliver possession of the lands or account for the profits and so the plaintiff sued to eject all the defendants from the lands, and recovery from them past and future profits. The temple is represented by the Chairman of the Board of Trustees who was appointed on 29th December, 1952, and authorised to file the suit for possession of the alleged temple's lands.

(3.) Some of the archakas filed a written statement pleading inter alia that these lands did not belong to the temple, but that they belonged to the archakas themselves and that the archakas had been in uninterrupted possession and enjoyment in their own right for the past about hundred years. They alleged that some time in the past Kothalanka Ganganna and Ramanna, who were brothers, and who were the archakas of the temple, enjoyed these lands in their own right ; that thereafter Kothalanka Bapanna, son of Ganganna, enjoyed the said lands and thereafter his successsors in title enjoyed the same. The also pleaded that Kothalanka Bappanna had alienated item 1 of A Schedule by and under a sale deed dated 5th May, 1901 (Exhibit-B 16) and the alienees and their successors in interest were in possession.