MAHANT DHARAM DASS Vs. SADHO PRAKASH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These are two connected appeals arising out of two suits brought in the Court of the District Judge of Benares with regard to the administration of a public trust. There is in the city of Benares a sangat, or monastery, of Nanak Shahi Udasi Sadhus, which has appertaining to it certain immoveable property in the shape of land, houses and trees. The manager of the trust is the Mahant, or religious head of the society, and it is not denied that the office ordinarily descends to the chosen disciple, or chela, of the deceased Mahant. In the year 1910 certain persons interested in the management of the trust obtained the permission of the Legal Remembrancer to institute a suit under the provisions of Section 92 of the Code of Civil Procedure for the removal of the trustee and the preparation of a scheme of management. The trust property was then in the possession of Sadho Prakash as Mahant, and with him were associated two persons named Makund Prakash and Sewa Das. By a decree dated March 1st, 1911, the District Judge of Benares removed these persons from the management and appointed one Baba Bichittar Singh as trustee. There was an unsuccessful appeal against this decree, and finally Baba Bichittar Singh died in September 1913 without having obtained effective possession of the trust property. Two persons named Mahant Makund Singh and Baba Hari Das appear to have asserted independently some sort of claim to succeed as of right to the office conferred by order of the Court on Baba Bichittar Singh; but nothing effective was done, and the management of the trust remained in confusion. Under these circumstances two distinct applications were made to the Legal Remembrancer for permission to institute suits under the provisions of Section 92 of the Civil Procedure Code, in order to obtain fresh directions from the District Court regarding the management of the trust. The Legal Remembrancer probably found it difficult, on the materials before him, to draw any distinction between the two sets of applicants; and on March 17th, 1914, he passed two separate orders, one in favour of each of them.

(2.) Two suits were accordingly instituted in the Court of the District Judge of Benares. In Suit No. 2 of 1914, instituted in April 1915 of that year, the plaintiffs were Govinda Nand, Daya Nand and Atma Nand, all described as ?Nanak Shahi Udasis", residents of Benares city. In Suit No. 3 of 1914, instituted on the 21st April 1914, the plaintiffs were Mahant Dharam Das and Saran Das, also described as "Udasis" and residents of Benares city. In each suit the defendants originally impleaded were Sadho Prakash, Makund Prakash and Sewa Das, the trustees removed from office under the decree of March 1st, 1911, the allegation being that they had continued in effective possession and management of the trust property, in consequence of Baba Bichittar Singh s failure to secure the benefits of the decree in his favour. In each suit the plaintiffs at a later stage impleaded Mahant Makund Singh and Baba Hari Das as persons claiming an interest in the matter through Baba Bichittar Singh deceased. The plaintiffs in Suit No. 3 of 1914 went a step further. It appears that, after the two suits had been instituted, a question was raised by Sadho Prakash and the original defendants as to whether this sangat at Benares was not to be regarded as dependent in some way on what has been described as a parent institution in the city of Amritsar. One LachhmanPrakash, as Mahant of a monastery at Amritsar, came forward to assert a right of interference in the affairs of the trust now in suit. He purported to make over the management to a body known as the Panchaiti Akhara of Udasi Sadhus. Documents were executed, by Sadho Prakash on the 15th April 1914, and by Lachhman Prakash on 28th April 1914, purporting to give some sort of legal colour to these arrangements. The plaintiffs in Suit No. 3 of 1914 proceeded accordingly to implead, first, Laohhman Prakash of Amritsar, and secondly, a group of defendants understood to represent the Panchaiti Akhara. The plaintiffs in Suit No. 2 of 1914 refused to implead these persons, and resisted a contention that they were in any way necessary parties to their suit.

(3.) The District Judge has tried the two suits together, in the sense that they were regularly set down for hearing on the same dates. He has written identical judgments and passed practically identical decrees in the two suits. At the same time he has kept the suits distinct and separate in important respects. He has not impleaded the plaintiffs in Suit No. 3 as defendants in Suit No. 2, or vice versa. He has not merely repelled the contention that Lachhman Prakash of Amritsar and the representatives of the Panchaiti Akhara were necessary parties to Suit No. 2 of 1914, but he has not apparently even considered the question whether it might not be advisable for him to bring them on the record as persons "whose presence before the Court maybe necessary in order to enable the Court effectually and completely to adjudicate upon and settle all the questions involved in the suit," under the very wide powers conferred on the Court by the provisions of Order I, Rule 10, of the Code of Civil Procedure. Finally, we have failed to discover on the record of either suit any formal order to the effect that evidence taken in the one suit may be treated as evidence in the other.