NAGINDAS NARANDAS LAVAR Vs. SOMNATH PREMCHAND LAVAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a second appeal from the decision of the Assistant Judge of Ahmedabad. The plaintiffs who are respondents on the appeal are members of the Lodhagada section of the Lohar caste and they sued for a declaration that they have a right individually to inspect the accounts and documents of the caste. The defendants are the managers of the caste; presumably (though there is no evidence on the point) the caste properties are vested in them, but certainly they are the managers of the caste property. The learned trial Judge held that the plaintiffs were entitled at all reasonable times and after proper demand to a right of inspecting the documents of title about the caste property and all accounts, papers and vouchers regarding the management of defendant No. 1 who is the principal manager; and that judgment was upheld by the Assistant Judge on appeal.

(2.) Mr. Divatia for the appellants takes a preliminery point that this is a caste question and that the Court has no jurisdiction to entertain the suit. I quite agree that this Court does not interfere in the internal management of a caste, and I also agree that it is competent for the caste to make rules regulating the rights of members of the caste to inspection of caste documents. But I am not prepared to agree that the whole question of the right of members of the caste to obtain accounts from their trustees and to inspect caste documents is a caste question. As at present advised I should say that a rule which purported entirely to exclude the members of the caste from any right to inspect documents, and which endeavoured to free the trustees from any obligation to account would not be valid. In the case of this caste we are told that there are no rules, and we must deal with the case on that footing. Unless the appellant can go as far as to say that the rules might exclude the plaintiffs claim to inspection altogether, I think it is impossible to say that this is a pure caste question.

(3.) Mr. Divatia has referred us to the various authorities upon the point and they are really very few. There are two cases reported in 11 Bombay Law Reporter and those are the only Cases which in my view have any bearing on the subject. The first is Jethabhai V/s. Chapsey (1909) 11 Bom. L.R. 1014 and Mr. Divatia relies on Certain passages in that judgment. It is the judgment of a division bench and the judgment has certain peculiar features. The plaintiff in that case was claiming inspection of certain caste documents and he claimed that right in various capacities. The learned Judges held in the first place that the plaintiff was not a trustee of the general properties of the caste, that he was only a trustee of two particular funds known as the Derasar and Sadharan funds, and they say therefore that the question narrows itself into this : Whether the plaintiff is entitled to claim inspection (a) in his character of a trustee of the Derasar and Sadharan funds or (b) in his character as member of the managing committee or (c) in his character as a member of the caste. They then say that it was not disputed by the plaintiff's counsel that his claims under (b) and (c) were governed by the rules of the caste and that those rules excluded the right of inspection. But notwithstanding that the learned Judges proceed to consider what right the plaintiff would have had as a member of the caste to inspection, if the rules had not excluded any right. They then deal with heading (a) and they hold that as trustee of the Derasar and Sadharan funds the plaintiff has no right to inspection, either at law or under the rules. That, one would have thought, would have disposed of the suit; but not so The learned Judges then proceed to consider whether, if the rule, instead of providing that the plaintiff should have no right of inspection, had purported to give him a right of inspection, he would in that event have had a right of inspection, and they hold that he would not. They then proceed to consider whether, if the plaintiff had possessed the rights which they hold that he did not possess, he demanded them from the proper quarter, and they hold that he did not They then proceed, to consider the question whether if the plaintiff had possessed the rights which be did not possess, and had demanded them from the proper quarter, which he did not do, there was a refusal or denial by the defendant such as would justify the suit, and they hold that there was none. They then at page 1029 say ;- There now remains the single point, whether this is a caste question and 80 beyond the jurisdiction of the Court. and they hold that the question must be answered in favour of the defendant, and that the Court bad no jurisdiction to entertain the suit, and that the difficulty could not be cured under Section 151 of the Civil Procedure Code.