DIGAMBAR TATYA UTPAT Vs. HARI DAMODAR UTPAT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This case essentially depends on its own particular facts. The point is whether on those facts a certain interest in connection with the offerings at the temple of the Goddess Rukhmini at Pandharpur can be validly mortgaged and sold in execution to a member of the class of Utpats, the owners of the Vritti of officiating as priests in this temple.

(2.) The first question is the true construction of the mortgage of January 4, 1888 (Exhibit 28). I will not quote the mortgage in detail, but our construction of it is that it mortgages the share amounting to l/288ths of the mortgagor in the net proceeds of the offerings made by devotees to the Goddess after providing for all the customary expenses of the temple payable out of the funds thus arrived at. We do not think that it gives the mortgagee the right himself to worship the Goddess and to take himself the offerings placed at the foot of the idol. All that the mortgagor is entitled to is this small aliquot share.

(3.) The custom in this temple, which is similar to the custom obtaining in the main temple at Pandharpur, (which the appellate Court had to consider exhaustively in another case) is for the Utpats or priests to farm out amongst themselves by auction the actual right of officiating and taking the offerings. Then the proceeds thus arrived at are divided amongst the particular class of priests. We are told, in the present case, that the priests number some forty-seven, while in the case of the main temple at Pandharpur they are far more numerous.