T S VENKATABALAGURUMURTHI CHETTIAR Vs. TABALAKRISHNA ODAYAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal which originated in a suit in the District Munsif's Court of Kumbakonam (O.S. No. 4 of 1920). In that suit the plaintiff who was carrying on a maligai business sued the Sri Sarangapaniswami temple and its two trustees personally to recover a sum of Rs. 900 and odd which represented the balance of money owing to him by the temple for the supply of groceries to the temple, those groceries having been supplied for the purpose of the puja. There was also a claim for interest. It is worthy of note that the dealings between the plaintiff and the defendants were from the 1 January, 1912 to the 14 March, 1919 and we are here 11 years afterwards, finally I hope, adjudicating upon the plaintiff's claim. In the District Munsif's Court the hearing of this quite a small claim took 16 days, it took one day when it was taken up on appeal by the Receiver in this case to the Subordinate Judge's Court--and there the decree of the District Munsif in favour of the plaintiff was set aside--and the appeal before Odgers, J., lasted two days--and there the decision of the learned Subordinate Judge was upheld--so that before the case reached us nineteen days of judicial time had been occupied in determining the rights of the parties in this very simple case and I feel bound to say that the action of the Receiver in taking the case up on appeal from the District Munsif has resulted in a gross waste of time and money.

(2.) It is admitted that the goods supplied by the plaintiff to the temple were ordered and utilised for the puja performed in the temple; and it is also admitted that the orders were placed by persons whose duty it was to place those orders, namely, the trustees of the temple; so that the goods were supplied for the proper and necessary purposes of the temple and were ordered by persons who were doing so in the discharge of their duties as trustees of the temple.

(3.) The District Munsif gave a decree in favour of the plaintiff but the Subordinate Judge reversed that decree because he held himself bound by a decision in Lakshmindra Thirthaswamiar V/s. Vibhudapriya Thirthaswamiar (1922) 44 M.L.J. 187, which was a decision with regard to the borrowing of money by the Swami of a Mutt. That case went up to the Privy Council and had not been decided at the time when the Subordinate Judge gave his judgment nor had it been decided when the case came before Odgers, J., and no mention appears to have been made of the case before him.