JITENDRA NATH Vs. NARENDRA KUMAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The suit giving rise to this appeal has been instituted by the plaintiff-respondents for the eviction of the defendants-appellants on the allegations that the plaintiffs are the Shebaits and Trustees in respect of the lease-hold property and that the lease in favour of the defendants for 99 years in respect of the suit property has expired by efflux of time. The expiration of the period limited by the lease by effluxion has not been disputed by the defendants and, as noted by the trial Judge, the only plea urged by the defendants in resisting ejectment is that the plaintiffs are not the only Shebaits and Trustees of the Devatra owning the lease-hold property and have, therefore, no right to prosecute the suit.

(2.) This plea has been repelled by the trial Judge on a detailed consideration of the materials on record and the trial Court has held that the plaintiff No. 1 alone is entitled to represent the whole of the Shebaiti interest of the Devatra property of which the suit-property forms part. The suit of eviction has accordingly been decreed by the trial Court which has been impugned in this appeal and in assailing the decree before us in this Court, only that very same plea has been urged by the defendants-appellants, namely, that the two plaintiffs do not represent the entire Shebaiti interest and, therefore, the suit could not proceed without the other co-Shebaits on record.

(3.) There exists some amount of obfuscation as to who owns the Devatra property and who has the right to sue in respect thereof and the Judges and the Sages of law have not always spoken in clear or one voice. A reference to Dr. Bijan Kumar Mukherjee's classical treatise (Tagore Law Lectures) on Hindu Law of Religious and Charitable Trusts would demonstrate that even such an erudite scholar and the later illustrious Editors of the Book had also to accept the position not to be free from obscurity. If a Devatra must be preceded with a dedication in favour of a Deity and that Deity is a juristic person, then the Deity alone should be the owner of the Devatra and only the Deity should be entitled to sue in respect thereof. In Pramatha v. Pradyumna, 52 Ind App 245 decided in 1925, the Privy Council no doubt observed that the Deity has a "Juridical status with the power of suing and being sued", but in Jagadra Nath Roy v. Hemanta Kumari, (1904) 31 Ind App 203 (PC), decided two decades before, the same Board observed that since the possession and management of the dedicated property belong to the Shebait, that would carry with it the right to bring whatever suits are necessary for the protection of a property and that "every such right of suit is vested in theShebait and not in the idol". A somewhat synthesized note was sought to be struck by Sir George Rankin in a later decision of the Board in Masjid Shahid Ganj v. Shiromani Gurdwara, AIR 1940 PC 116 to the effect that the Deity being, at least in theory, the owner, should also, in accordance with that theory, be entitled to sue or to be sued, "though the right of suit is really in the Shebait". The upshot appears to be that it is not so much a matter of substance but rather of form as to whether the suit is brought in the name of Deity as the plaintiff represented by the Shebait, or in the name or in the name of the Shebait as the plaintiff representing the Deity.