PICHAIMUTHU Vs. SAVARIAPPA KAVANDAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) I agree with the judgment of my learned brother. Plaintiff 1 claims to be the descendant of the founder of the Christian Church or temple at Nallathambigonndanpatti in the Trichinopoly District. The other plaintiffs belong to the family of the founder and there are said to be 20 families of goundars in the same village similarly interested in the plaint properties. Although this church is called Sarveswaran Koil--Sarveswaran being one of the attributes of Siva besides meaning Lord of All and although it came out in evidence that certain practices generally associated with Hindu notions of worship are kept up in this church-such as the holding of a car festival, letting off fireworks, exhibiting swarupams (images) and keeping of a hundial or collection box, the first plaintiff admitted in his evidence that it was a Roman Catholic Church within the Parish of Karungulam and that the village children were being baptized, confirmations held, marriages solemnized, and masses performed by the local Roman Catholic priest, who at the time of suit was the defendant 8. He is not a resident priest but comes to this church twice a year at festival times and he blesses the tombs of deceased parishioners in the cemetry. In fact, the Sarveswaran Koil appears to be a place of public worship undergoing a process of assimilation into the Roman Catholic Church; but there is no evidence that the Church has ever been consecrated as a Christian Church. The plaintiffs cannot in this suit, on the statement contained in their plaint and the evidence of plaintiff 1, ask for any relief that would be inconsistent with the ordinances of the Church of Rome and the ordinary control exercised over Church affair by the Bishop of the diocese and the priest of the parish to which the church in question belongs. Vide the judgment of Ayling and Coutts- Trotter, JJ., in Louis V/s. Gonsalves [1918] 8 M. L. W. 208.

(2.) The reliefs asked for in the plaint are: (1) A declaration that the plaintiffs and other goundars have the exclusive right of managing the plaint temple and its properties and that neither the, defendants nor any other have any right therein; (2) A permanent injunction restraining the defendants from causing any obstruction at any time against the right of the plaintiffs in the school site; (3) A direction that defendants 3 and 8 should deliver the school site to the plaintiffs. (4) costs and; (5) further reliefs as the Court may deem fit.

(3.) The plaintiffs are not entitled to a permanent injunction against the defendants including the defendant 8, who is the parish priest, from interference in management of the inam which was registered in the name of the Church with the plaintiff's ancestor as worshipper or Church warden, seeing that they have not asked in their plaint for that relief, and they have not shown that they have been obstructed in these matters or that they are in danger of being obstructed, and plaintiff 1 admitted in his evidence that the Rev. Fathers never appointed anyone to manage the church or its lands and never objected to members of the plaintiffs families doing so. The District Judge should not have granted them an injunction in this matter. They are, however, entitled to a simple declaration of their right to manage the inam and collect the rents, and to the care of the church and its site, seeing that their right of management was denied in the defendant's written statement and that plaintiff 1 asserts that defendant 8 tried to coerce him into executing a document handing over the church to him by refusing to solemnize four marriages, if he did not do so, and defendant 8 in his evidence asserted that the plaintiffs had no right in the church.