KHURSHED MEERZA Vs. SYED FAIZUDDIN ALI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal is directed against a decree which purports to have been passed under the provisions of the Religious Endowments Act (XX of 1863).

(2.) In the City of Murshidabad there is a wakf estate known as Basant Ali Khan's endowment estate. Under the Act, the management of this endowment is vested in a manager under the supervision of a Committee of three members. At the beginning of the present year the three members were Syed Faizuddin Ali, Syed Abdul Hussain and Mirza Yahia Sheraji. On January 23rd, however, Syed Abdul Hussain died, and a vacancy was created on the Committee. Under Section 10 of the Act it was the duty of the two remaining members to take steps to elect a new member within three months of the vacancy occurring. One of the members appears to have issued notice about an election, but on an application by some of the interested persons the learned Judge held that the notice must be issued by both members and that a notice by one alone was not valid. No election, therefore, was held on that notice. Then two interested persons Khurshed Mirza and Sarfaraz Ali Begg filed a plaint, with the District Judge's permission, against the two remaining members as defendants, and in this plaint the prayers were (a) that the Court should direct the defendants to take proper steps for the holding of an election, and fix a date within which the notices should be issued, and (b) that the Court should remove one or both of the members in case of default. Mirza Yahia Sheraji professed that he was anxious to comply with the rules but that he was thwarted by his colleague. Syed Faizuddin said that an election could not be held until the register of electors had been revised.

(3.) The learned Judge heard arguments and on March 28th, he delivered judgment: he held that the plaintiffs had a cause of action, that there was nothing objectionable in the form of the suit, that the permission to sue had been given in accordance with law, and that the register of electors could not be revised until after the vacancy had been filled up and he ordered the defendants jointly to issue proper notices for an election by April 22nd.