SRI RADHA KRISHNAJI Vs. RAMESHWAR PRASHAD SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This second appeal is by the plaintiff against the dismissal of a suit instituted by him as the representative of three idols and manager of the thakurbari in which they have been installed, for the recovery of some of the property dedicated to them and afterwards alienated by their pujari without necessity. In 1862, one Lachman Prasad dedicated to the idols a four annas share in each of two villages, Rewara Jagdispur and Birni Bishunpur. After a partition of the family property one of his sons Jadubans Lal, had a twelve annas share in the former village and the other son, Fatehbahadur, had a share of the same extent in the latter and each was entrusted with the management of the endowed properties in the village of which he was a part proprietor.

(2.) In 1879 a man named Ganpat Jha was appointed pujari. According to a the deed of endowment the pujari was to have the management of the properties but he was not permitted to alienate any of them, and he was to render an account of the income and expenditure to the heirs of Lachman Prasad, who were given the power to dismiss him for immorality, and in that event or on his death to appoint another pujari. The income was to be spent "on virtuous acts in consultation with the heirs." When Ganpat died his son Brijnandan Jha succeeded to the office. In 1892, the widow of Jadubans Lal, as guardian of her minor sons gave to the person from whom the defendants derive their title a lease of the idols share and also of her sons share in Rewara Jagdishpur for a period of 12 years and in 1900 one of the sons, then of age, and his mother on behalf of the other son, executed another lease of the same property in favour of the same person for a term of 9 years. In 1919 the plaintiff who had inherited the twelve annas share of Birni Bishunpur brought a suit against the other members of his family whose interests lay in Rewara Jagdishpur and against Brijnandan Jha.

(3.) Soon after the institution of the suit Brijnandan Jha, who according to the plaintiff's claim in the suit had already been dismissed, executed a lease of the idols four annas share in Rewara Jagdishpur for a term of 31 years without taking any nazrana from the lessee on a rent of Rs. 1,200 a year which was the same rent as in the two previous leases. This is the lease to which the present suit relates. The 1919 suit was compromised in 1924 by all the heirs of Lachman Prasad, and by the compromise the plaintiff was appointed manager of the endowed properties in place of Brijnandan Jha who was declared to have been dismissed. Brijnandan Jha had already withdrawn from the suit which accordingly was decreed against him ex-parte. Brijnandan Jha had brought a suit in 1917 for partition of Rewara Jagdishpur and obtained a preliminary decree. After the compromise in the other suit the present plaintiff applied to the Court for transfer of his name from the category of defendants in the partition suit to the category of plaintiffs and for the substitution of himself as plaintiff in place of Brijnandan Jha. The application was allowed, but on an appeal by the lessees to the High Court the order of the lower Court was set aside.