KUKATI KOTHANDARAMA REDDI Vs. PONNALURU LAKSHMINARASA REDDI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Appeal No. 109 of 1945.-This appeal arises out of O.S. No. 11 of 1942 on the file of the District Court, Nellore, brought by the hereditary trustee of an excepted temple, dedicated to Sri Kumbeswaraswamivaru, at Komerica, Nellore Taluk, to set aside a scheme framed by the Hindu Religious Endowments Board. The first defendant in the suit is the Board and defendants 2 and 3 are the non-hereditary trustees appointed by the Board under the scheme. The appellants here are defendants 2 and 3.

(2.) The plaintiff was the sole trustee up to the 5 January, 1939, when the Board as a result of complaints regarding the trustee's administration instituted an enquiry and passed an order, dated the 5 January, 1939, approving of a scheme for the management of the temple The hereditary trustee filed a suit O.S. No. 4 of 1939 in the Court of the District Judge of Nellore, in which he asked the Court to modify or cancel the scheme. The District Judge held that the Board had no jurisdiction to frame a scheme in the absence of an application by 20 persons interested except on grounds of mismanagement or waste of the temple endowments. The learned Judge then went into the grounds on which the Board passed its order promulgating the scheme. Firstly, he dealt with the insolvency of the trustee which had been annulled. Secondly he dealt with a charge that the trustee had not been leasing out temple lands in open auction. In dealing with that ground the learned Judge refers to a lease granted by the trustee after the framing of the scheme which apparently had been made the subject of cross-examination. His conclusion is that " there is no material to sustain any finding of mismanagement under this head and that the fact that the hereditary trustee leased the temple lands direct and not by open auction is not per se an act of mismanagement." Then the learned Judge goes on to deal with two other allegations which are found to have been insufficient or unsubstantiated. After dealing with the grounds on which the scheme was based, the learned Judge proceeds to discuss some other material not referred to in the order promulgating the scheme. The trustees had been cross-examined with reference to a purchase by his father of 37.42 acres of land for the temple and an allegation that the same land had been purchased by the trustee himself in 1923 for his own benefit from a reversioner who was claiming a title in the land hostile to that of the temple. This matter is dismissed by the learned Judge with the remark that " this ancient complication does not appear to have been before the Commissioners when they framed this scheme." The learned Judge then goes on to deal with the failure of the Board to give the hereditary trustee reasonable opportunity to be heard before the scheme was framed. The scheme was set aside on 23 February, 1940.

(3.) On the 2nd of April, 1940, a petition was submitted to the Board, Ex. D-1, by 21 worshippers of the temple including the present second and third defendants. In that petition after referring to the proceedings in O.S. No. 4 of 1939 the petitioners go into the details of the transaction relating to the sale of 37.42 acres of the temple and the subsequent acquisition of the same property in 1923 by the trustee. They also refer to a mortgage alleged to have been executed by the trustee over temple properties as well as his own private properties and there is a -general allegation that he has been cultivating the temple lands and appropriating the income for his own benefit. Then the petitioners proceed to set out the details of the registered lease deed brought into existence by the trustee after the framing of the previous scheme, alleging that this lease was given for an inadequate rental to a nominee of the trustee himself and that the registered deed was brought into existence during the pendency of the proceedings with ulterior motives and with a view to obtain a benefit for the trustee. The petition states that these circumstances were not brought to the notice of the Board when the previous scheme proceedings were going on and prays the Board in the light of this material to start scheme proceedings again. As a result of this petition the Board held an enquiry and framed the scheme which is now challenged.