TIRUPPARANKUNDARAM ETC, MADURA DEVASTHANAMS Vs. ALIKHAN SAHIB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Their Lordships have to determine in this appeal the ownership of a barren hill in the Madura District of Madras. The claimants before the Board are the Government represented by the Secretary of State for India in Council, and the Tirupparankundram Temple. The Mahomedan community, who have a mosque on the highest point of the hill, were parties to the proceedings in the Indian Courts, but they have not been represented on the present appeal. The Madura Taluk Board was also a party to the suit but has not appeared on the appeal.

(2.) In the trial Court, the temple, represented by its manager, was the plaintiff. He claimed the whole hill, with the exception of certain cultivated and assessed lands and the site of the mosque, as temple property. The Mahomedan defendants asserted their ownership of the particular eminence upon which the mosque stands, and of a portion of the main hill known as the Nellitope. The Secretary of State, who will be referred to as the respondent, claimed to be the owner of all the unoccupied portions of the hill as Government poramboke or waste appertaining to the village of Tirupparankundram, which is admittedly Government property. The suit was tried by the Subordinate Judge of Madura. He decided against the Government claim and in favour of the temple, except in respect of the Nellitope, and the actual site of the mosque with its flagstaff and flight of steps leading up to it, which he held to be the property of the Mahomedan defendants. The decree of the Subordinate Judge was dated 25 August 1923.

(3.) The Government were apparently content with this decision. The unoccupied portions of the hill were probably of little value to them, and neither the Secretary of State nor the temple manager appealed. The Mahomedans were dissatisfied and appealed, but as their only grievance was against the temple, they did not make the Secretary of State a party. The result, their Lordships think, must have been unexpected.