NALLURI RANGACHARYULU Vs. KONDAMADUGULA VAJJALA REDDI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The question that is common to both these petitions is whether the prayer asked for in the plaints in O.S. Nos. 178 and 179 of 1943, on the file of the District Munsiff's Court, Guntur, amounted really to asking for a declaration that the orders complained of were ultra vires and illegal or whether they amounted to asking also for a restoration of the respective plaintiffs to the archaka's office.

(2.) It is conceded by the learned Counsel for the petitioners that for ascertaining this the mere form of the prayer will not be looked into but the substance thereof. In the plaint in O.S. No. 178 the prayer is for a declaration that the order dated 18 December, 1940, by the trustee and the order dated 12 July, 1942, of the Hindu Religious Endowments Board regarding the plaintiff's dismissal are ultra vires of their powers and wholly illegal, unjust and void and hence do not affect the right of the plaintiff to the office of archaka in the suit temple. This idea of a declaration to the effect that the order does not affect the plaintiff's right to the archaka's office was also mentioned specifically in the same terms in paragraph III 6 (f) of the plaint as also in paragraph V. Likewise in the plaint in O.S. No. 179 of 1943, the Prayer is for a declaration couched in the same terms and that part of it which seeks for declaration that the plaintiff's right to the office of archaka is not affected, is repeated in two other places.

(3.) It is argued by Mr. Kameswara Rao that what the plaintiff intended to ask for was only a bare declaration concerning the illegal and ultra vires nature of the orders in question and that he did not intend to ask for his restoration to the office. The general reading of the plaints and the particular form in which the declaration has been asked for does not however support this contention. Holding then that in substance both the plaints prayed for the plaintiffs restoration to the archaka's office, the question in whether the order of the lower Court returning the plaints for presentation to the proper Court is correct.