THAKUR GOPALJI Vs. BIHAR RELIGIOUS TRUST BOARD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This Appeal under Clause 10 of the Letters Patent is preferred by the writ petitioner against the order dated 19th September 2000 made by the learned Single Judge in C.W.J.C. No. 9254 of 2000. The matter at dispute is the management of Thakur Gopalji Maharaj Temple situated at Mirjapur ((Bindwara Mor), District- Munger (hereinafter referred to as 'the Temple'). The appellants claim to be managing the Temple.

(2.) The President of the Bihar State Board of Religious Trusts (hereinafter referred to as 'the Board'), under notice dated 2nd August 2000 called upon the appellants to show cause why a legal action be not taken against them for their failure to submit the accounts of the income and expenditure of the Temple from 1951-1952 till 1999-2000 and to show cause why a scheme may not be framed under section 32 of the Bihar Hindu Religious Trust Act, 1950 (hereinafter referred to as 'the Act') and why a committee for management be not constituted. In absence of any reply by the appellants, under order dated 26th August 2000 made by the President of the Board, in exercise of power conferred by section 28 (2) (h) of the Act, the appellants were removed as the trustees. Under notification issued on 26th August 2000, the President of the Board constituted a committee of eleven persons under the Chairmanship of the Circle Officer, Munger for management of the Temple.

(3.) The challenge to the said order and the notification dated 26th August 2000 in above C.W.J.C. No. 9254 of 2000 has been rejected by the learned Single Judge on the sole ground that the appellants have an alternative statutory remedy before the District Judge under section 28 (3) of the Act. Therefore, this Appeal. Learned counsel Mr. Kamal Nayan Choubey has appeared for the appellants. He concedes that the appellants do have an alternative remedy before the District Judge. However, he has submitted that in peculiar facts of the case this Court ought to entertain the writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution. He has submitted that the Temple is a private property of the appellants and is not a 'religious trust' within the meaning of the Act. The Board, therefore, had no jurisdiction to make the impugned order or to issue the impugned notification. The impugned order and the notification thus suffer from inherent lack of jurisdiction. He has further submitted that it is the Board alone which has power to take action under section 28 of the Act. In the present case it is the President of the Board who has made the impugned order and has issued the impugned notification. Therefore also, the impugned order and the notification are vitiated by lack of jurisdiction. In the circumstances, as held in the judgment of this Court in the matter of Swamy Jai Krishnacharya Vs. Bihar State Board of Religious Trust & Ors, 2000 4 PLJR 645 , the learned Single Judge ought to have entertained the writ petition. In the above case a similar matter came up for consideration before the Bench of this Court.