NAHAR SINGH Vs. SHIROMANI GURDWARA PRABANDHAK COMMITTEE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE applicant-appellants have moved this application (R. A. No 80-C. IT of 1991) under Order 47, Rule 1, Civil Procedure Code, for review of our judgment dated September 13, 1991, rendered in F. A. O. No. 109 of 1979.

(2.) THE principal grounds for review set down in the review application are :

(3.) A perusal of the penultimate paragraph of the judgment reveals that we found no embargo for converting a Dharamsala existing as on August 15, 1947 into a Sikh Gurdwara and in coming to this conclusion, reliance was placed on a decision of this Court in F. A. O. No. 63 of 1964, Gurbachan Singh and Ors. v. Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee and Ors. F. A. O. 63 of 1964, decided on April 8, (970. In arriving at this conclusion, we did not take note of the provisions of Sections 3 and 4 of the 1991 Act. Section 3 of the 1991 Act says that no person shall convert any place of worship of any religious denomi-nation of any section thereof into a place of worship of a different section of the same religious denomination or of a different religious denomination or any section thereof. Section 4 (1) of the 1991 Act says that the religious character of a place of worship existing on the 15th day of August, 1947 shall continue to be the same as it existed on that day. Proviso to sub section (2) of Section 4 of the Act lays down that if any suit, appeal or other proceeding, instituted or filed on the ground that conversion has taken place in the religious character of any such place after the 15th day of August, 1947, in pending on the commencement of the Act, such suit, appeal or other proceeding shall not so abate and every such suit, appeal or other proceeding shall be disposed of in accordance with the provisions of sub-section (1 ). These provisions have an important bearing on the decision of the question involved and these were not adverted to while deciding the appeal. Moreover, the comulative effect of the documentary evidence in the form of revenue record, i. e. , Exhibits P-1, P 2, P-3, P-4, P-5, P-6, P-7, P-8, P-9. P-11, produced by the applicant-appellants, was not drawn while deciding the principal question involved. In Sir Hari Shankar Pal and Anr. v. Anath Nath Miitar and Ors. A. I. R. 1949 F. C. 106, at page 111, their Lordships observed thus :