GOPAL DATT Vs. BABU RAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a second appeal by defendants against a decree of the lower appellate Court passed against him for the rent of a house. The suit was brought by an idol through one Babu Ram described as sarbarakar and manager of the idol. There are two points in this second appeal, the first of which is that the lower Court was not justified in taking into evidence a mukhtarnama dated 1 December 1926. The lower appellate Court has found as its conclusion that Babu Ram was the de facto manager of the temple not only on this mukhtarnama but also on discarding the mukhtarnama on the oral evidence. This mukhtarnama was not proved in the lower Court, but it was admitted in evidence by the lower appellate Court. It purported to have been executed on 1 December 1926, by Mul Chand, deceased, who was the manager of the temple and the successor of Badri Prasad, who made the original endowment of the temple. We are of the opinion, in any case, that as the lower Court acted on the evidence other than mukhtarnama, no point arises in regard to it in second appeal.

(2.) The next point which was argued was ground No. 8 that the de facto manager is legally not entitled to sue unless he is also a de jure manager. The finding of the Court below is that Babu Ram was a de facto manager of the temple. The point perhaps is not very clearly expressed; but what is meant by learned Counsel is that a suit cannot be brought in the name of the idol by a person who is not a de jure manager. For this proposition counsel relied particularly on the ruling of their Lordships of the Privy Counsel reported in Maharaja Jagadindra Nath Roy Bahadur V/s. Rani Hemanta Kumari Dabi (1905) 32 Cal 129. That however was a special case and the point, which arose was whether the plaintiff who was not the idol, but a private person, Maharaja Jagadindra Nath Roy Bahadur, could obtain the benefit of Section 7, Lim. Act, on account of his minority at a certain period of his possession. On p. 208 their Lordships said: Although this suit is brought by the plaintiff as shebait, there is no evidence on which any reliance could be placed as to who founded the religious endowment or as to the terms or condition of the foundation. The legal inference, therefore is that the title to the property, or to the management and the control of the property, as the case may be, follows the line of inheritance from the founder, as was laid down by this Board in Gossami Sri Gridhariji V/s. Ramanlalji (1890) 16 IA 137.

(3.) On p. 210 their Lordships stated: But assuming the religious dedication to have been of the strictest character, it still remains that the possession and management of the dedicated property belongs to the shebait. And this carries with it the right to bring whatever suits are necessary for the protection of the property. Every such right of suit is vested in the shebait, not in the idol. In the present case the right to sue accrued to the plaintiff when he was not of age. The case therefore falls within the clear language of Section 7, Lim. Act, which says: "If a person entitled to institute a suit... be , at the time rom which the period of limitation is to be reckoned, a minor," he may institute the suit after coming of age within a time which in the present case would be three years.