BANWARI LAL Vs. BHAGWATI PRASAD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS appeal by the defendants is directed against the order of learned Additional District Judge, Sikar, dated November 13, 1972, restraining them from entering upon the disputed school building and using its library, furniture, record and all other properties, and from doing any act, directly or indirectly, so as to interfere with the rights of the plaintiffs -respondents An order has also been made appointing Mr. Manmath Kumar Misra, Advocate, Sikar, as the receiver of the disputed school building along with its assets, with authority, to take possession of the school building and properties lying therein from the possession of the receiver appointed by the Bombay City Civil Court, and to make an inventory of all the furniture, books, record, implements and other accessories, and to submit a compliance report, along with the list of properties, to the trial court, within a period of two months. A cross -objection has been filed against that order by the plaintiffs -respondents.

(2.) THE controversy arose in a suit which was instituted by the plaintiffs respondents for declaration and permanent injunction. It was alleged that plaintiffs Nos. 1 to 4 were the trustees of the 'Jhunihunu Pragati Sangh, Bombay'', which was a public trust registered under the Bombay Public Trusts Act, 1950, with its head office in Bombay. It was pleaded that the trust was established in 1953, for some charitable objects, including imparting of education, and that it started a Montessori school in 1960, in Jhunjhunu, under the name and style of 'Adarsh Bal Niketan, Jhunjhunu'. It was pleaded further that the school was initially started in a rented building, but the trust thereafter purchased lands for the construction of a school building The building is alleged to have been constructed in 1965, at a cost of Rs. 1,25,000/ -, and the plaintiffs claim that the school was then shifted to the new building of the trust, and continued to function with the help of the grant -in -aid received from the State Government. The plaintiffs contended that Banwarilal, defendant No. 1, was appointed as the Headmaster of the school on July 1, 1965, while Bhimraj Sharma, defendant No. 3, was appointed as one of the teachers. The Managing Committee of the trust was however dissatisfied with the manner in which the defendants, as the teachers of the school, behaved and discharged their functions. It was pointed out that they did not even conduct the terminal examination for the year 1970 and the earlier result was also highly unsay factory. The plaintiffs pleaded that as the defendants and the other teachers started flouting the instructions of the trustees, the Managing Committee decided to close down the school from the beginning of the academic year 1971 -72, and served notices on all the teachers terminating their services from June 30, 1971. The defendants disregarded the orders of the Managing Committee and the trustees, and continued to come to the school building, threatened to interfere with the building and the property of the school, and illegally formed another society which was named as 'Adarash Bal Niketan Society'. They claimed that they were the owners of the school building and its other property, to the detriment of the rights of the plaintiffs, and began to run a parellel school called 'Adarash Bal Niketan, Jhunjhunu'. On these and other averments the plaintiffs prayed for a declaration that they were the owners in possession of the school building, its library and furniture etc. They also prayed that the defendants may be restrained from entering with the running of the plaintiffs' 'Adarash Bal Niketan School'.

(3.) IT has been argued by the learned Counsel for the appellants that the ''Adarash Bal Niketan' was a trust 'created' by the public of Jhunjhunu for an educational purpose, and that it was therefore a public trust within the meaning of Section 2(11) of the Rajasthan Public Trusts Act, 1959, and should have been registered under Section 17 of the Act. This argument has been advanced for the purpose of assailing the impugned order of trial court on the ground that, in the absence of any such registration, the suit was not maintainable, and the plaintiffs has no prima facie case in their favour. We requested the learned Counsel for the appellants to refer to any such plea in the written statement, but all that the learned Counsel could do was to invite our attention to paragraph 36 of the written statement. We have gone through it, and we ate constrained to say that it does not contain any plea to the effect that the trust in question was 'created' by the public of Jhunjhunu so as to attract the application of Section 17 of the Act. Our attention has no doubt been invited to Anand Prasad Lakshmi Niwas Ganeriwal v. State of Andhra Pradesh and Ors. : AIR1963SC853 , and it has been urged that as the bulk of property of the plaintiffs' Bombay Trust lay in Rajasthan, it was necessary for the plaintiffs to register the trust in Rajasthan. We have gone through that case, but it was based on different facts. We also find that their Lordships of the Supreme Court have taken the view that it was abundantly clear that where the trust is situate in a particular State, the law of that State will apply to the trust, even though any part of the trust property, whether large or small, is situate outside the State where the trust is situate. We are therefore unable to uphold the argument which has been advanced by the learned Counsel for the appellants.