KALLEPALLE KRISHNAMURTHI Vs. MADRAS HINDU RELIGIOUS ENDOWMENTS BOARD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This Revision Petition raises a question of some little difficulty. It arises out of an application, made by the petitioners under Section 84 of the Madras Religious Endowments Act, to have an order passed by the Religious Endowments Board on 8 September, 1930, set aside and to have it declared that the suit temple is an "excepted" temple whereof the petitioners are the hereditary trustees.

(2.) The learned District Judge has found that the suit temple was founded by one of the ancestors of the petitioners, that properties were purchased by the petitioners ancestors and endowed to the temple, that there were also endowments by the Mohiri Zamindar's family but that all the properties were registered in the name of the temple represented by its archaka for the time being. He has also found that there is no evidence to show that the petitioners and their ancestors were acting as trustees of the temple. On these findings, he dismissed the petition.

(3.) Mr. Jagannadha Das, on behalf of the petitioners before me, contends that the learned District Judge has not addressed himself to what is really the material question for decision in the case, because in finding whether a temple is an excepted temple or not the Court has only to consider whether the right to the trusteeship is hereditary and not whether in fact such right has been exercised by the members of the founders family. In the litigation which immediately preceded the present proceedings that is in O.S. No. 12 of 1928 on the file of the District Court of Ganjam a claim was put forward by the Bairagi Archaka that he and his predecessors were the hereditary heads of this institution on the footing that it was a Mutt and not a temple. That claim was found against, the Court holding that the institution was a temple and not a Mutt and that the Bairagies were only Archakas and had no hereditary right to the trusteeship. Mr. Jagannadha Das is of course right in his contention that any observations made by the District Judge in that judgment as to the loss of rights by the petitioners family as the result of non-user do not constitute the matter res judicata.