PONNAMBALA PILLAI (DIED) Vs. MUTHU CHETTIAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a suit brought by two out of five trustees of a temple to recover rent for three faslies, 1316, 1317 and 1318 and the first question is as to whether the suit was properly instituted as the subordinate Judge has held. As to that, it is objected, in the first place, that the 1st plaintiff had been dismissed by the Kumbakonam Temple Committee from his office of trustee before he institution of the suit. It does not appear from the exhibits in the case that he has ever been finally dismissed by the Committee (see Ex. T of the 11th February 1912 and Ex. C of the 5th January 1913 from which it appears that the question of his dismissal was still to be settled in circulation.) Apart from this, it is not suggested that he had ever been called upon to answer the charges in respect of which it was proposed to dismiss him, and therefore, even if they had purported to dismiss him, such an abuse of the rules of natural justice, it is well settled would invalidate the dismissal in the case of an office of this kind. It appears that the managing member of the Temple Committee sent proposals to the other members of the Committee to dismiss the 1st plaintiff which is a very extraordinary method of conducting temple business of this importance; and before he had received answers from all the members took upon himself to inform the plaintiff that he had been dismissed. The chairman had, in our opinion, no right to proceed in this way, and one of the members who replied, was fully justified in raquiring that the matter should be further considered. We hold that the 1st plaintiff was not properly dismissed and that the first objection fails.

(2.) The next objection is that at the time the suit was brought the 7th and 8th defendants had been appointed trustees of this Devasthanam by the Temple Committee. That is contested on the other side, but we assume for the purposes of this case that they had been duly appointed. It is then said it was not competent to the 1st and 2nd plaintiffs to institute suit by themselves without consulting the other trustees whom they have impleaded as the 6th, 7th and 8th defendants. At one time there was a considerable body of authority in this Court in favour of that view namely Parameswaran v. Shangaran (1890) I.L.R. 14 Mad. 489, Puranathan Somayajipad v. Shankara Menon (1899) I.L.R. 23 Mad. 82, Savitri Antarjanam v. Raman Nambudri (1900) I.L.R. 24 Mad. 266. But in Maryil Raman Nair v. Narayanan Nambudhpad (1902) I.L.R. 26 Mad. 461, doubts were expressed as to the soundness of that view, and the question was referred to a Full Bench in Karattole Edamana v. Unni Kannan (1903) I.L.R. 26 Mad. 649.

(3.) The Full Bench did, not find it necessary to decide the general question but based their decision on the terms of the Transfer of Property Act applicable to the suit which was a suit for redemption. However since that time a view adverse to the view taken in the earlier cases has been expressed in a long series of cases beginning with Peria Karuppan v. Velayuthan Chetti (1906) I.L.R. 29 Mad. 302 which followed the decision of the Calcutta Full Bench in Pyari Mohun Bose v. Kedarnath Roy (1899) I.L.R. 26 Mad. 409 and this was followed by one of us sitting on the Original Side in Rasu Mudaliar v. Veerasami Pillai and subsequently the same view was taken by Benches of this Court in Kunhan v. Moorthi (1910) I.L.R. 34 Mad. 406, Malappurathi Nambi v. Chinnazhi Krishnan (1911) 2 M.W.N. 537 and quite recently in Narayanan Chettiar v. Lahshmanan Chettiar . In these circumstances having regard to the fact that all the later cases are practically agreed on this point, we must hold that this objection also must be overruled. I may mention that the same view has been taken in Biri Singh v. Nawal Singh (1898) I.L.R. 24 Mad. 226.