MAHANT BAL DASS Vs. STATE OF HIMACHAL PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is the second occasion on which the writ petition has come on for prelimidary hearing before this Court.

(2.) The writ petition was summarily rejected earlier by an order passed on December 29, 1986. The said order reads as follows : "The principal challenge in the petition, which was reiterated at the preliminary bearing, was that the inclusion of Mandir Damtal at Damtal, District Kangra, at Serial No. 10 of Schedule I of the Himachal Pradesh Hindu Public Religious Institutions and Charitable Endowments Act, 1984, is illegal, invalid and arbitrary, since the temple is neither a Charitable endowment within the meaning of section 2 (a) nor a Hindu Public religious institution within the meaning of section 2 (f) of the said Act. In view of the decision of the Supreme Court in Panipat Woollen and General Mills Co, Ltd. and another v. Union of India and others, (1986) 4 SCC 368, the principle wherein laid down must apply with equal force to the case in hand, the petitioner is relegated to the alternative remedy available to him by way of a civil suit to seek the appropriate relief. Rejected in view of the aforesaid observations -

(3.) The decision aforesaid was subjected to an appeal before the Supreme Court under Article 136 of the Constitution. The appeal was allowed and the judgment under appeal was set aside and the case has been remanded to be dealt with and disposed of alongwith Civil Suit No. 44 of 1984 unless "it raises a question of title which cannot be determined with out an adjudication of rights on taking of evidence". The determination of this issue upon merits is left to this Court.