JADU NATH SINGH Vs. THAKUR SITA RAMJI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THEIR Lordships think this is a very plain case, and they propose to intimate at once the advice which they will tender to the Sovereign.

(2.) THE whole question arises on the construction of a deed of endowment executed by one Darshan Singh on the 20th of July, 1898. There had been a joint family, and he and his brother, the heads of the joint family, had made a joint will and the brother had died before him. Darshan Singh was desirous by this date of making a disposition of the property, which was now his as head of the joint family, which should be devoted to religious purposes, and he executed this deed and afterwards registered it, by registering, showing that it represented an intention which he desired to treat as carried into execution. The deed begins by saying that he dedicates his whole property to and in favour of the temple of Sita Ramji; then he goes on to say that during his life-time, he himself will manage and administer the estate of the temple; after that, he provides that his daughter-in-law is to act as manager and administrator, and, after her, his own daughters, Musammat Janki and Musammat Lilawati, and a daughter of his deceased brother shall jointly remain managers and administrators, and shall live in his house and properly manage the estate. The deed proceeds:

(3.) NOW it is said that, according to previous decisions of this Board, there is authority for reading the terms of this deed in some very different way from what it would naturally be assumed to be if properly read. We have been referred to a decision of Sir George Turner in a case of Sonatun By sack v. Juggutsoondree Dossee (1859) 8 Moo. I.A. 66 and to Ashutosh Butt v. Doorga Churn Chatterji (1879) I.L.R. 5 Calc. 438 : L.R.6 I.A. 182. On looking at those cases, the first was a case in which Sir -George Turner held that, although nominally there was a gift at the beginning to the idol, that gift was so cut down by subsequent disposition as to leave it clear that the subsequent disposition ought to prevail rather than the earlier one, and that consequently there was no gift to the idol such as to make the property pass as an absolute and entire interest in its favour. The second case was also a decision of this Board, and came to very much the same thing. It was a question of the construction of a will, taken as a whole, and it was said there was not a complete gift to the idol; it was cut down by the subsequent disposition to the family. Here there is no such cutting down. There is, in the beginning, a clear expression of an intention to apply the whole estate for the benefit of the idol and the temple, and then the rest is only a gift to the idol sub made by a direction that of the whole, which had already been given, part is to be applied for the upkeep of the idol itself and the repair of the temple, and the other is to go for the upkeep of the managers. There was no reason why the disposer should not nominate the members of his family as his managers, and he has done so. And there is nothing in that which militates against the propriety of his ear-marking a certain part of the money to remunerate them as managers so long as they should so continue.