ABDUR RAHIM Vs. MAHOMED BARKAT ALI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS litigation arises in connection with an ancient mosque standing on a portion of holding No. 221 in the Government khas mehal of Dihi Panchannagram, near Calcutta. In a proceeding under reg. II. of 1819 between the Government of India as plaintiff and one Syed Miron Munshi of Kalinga as defendant, the whole holding, then 3 bighas 11 cottas and 3 chhataks in area (a portion has since been acquired under the Land Acquisition Act), was declared by the revenue authorities to be revenue-free as property dedicated long ago to religious uses, i.e., a wakf, of which the said Miron Munshi was the then mutawalli. The mosque stood on a portion of this area and the rest of it was let out to tenants, the rents being appropriated for the expenses of the mosque.

(2.) MIR Miran or Miron Munshi continued to hold this area of land as mutawalli of the mosque until his death about seventy years ago, and after him his son, Sheikh Mahommad Jan, succeeded him as mutawalli. Mahommad Jan died about fifty years ago, and thereafter his widow, Rukia Bibi, assumed the office of mutawalli. On October 27, 1902, she executed a deed whereby she purported to nominate her son Mir Ramjan Ali as her successor in the mutawalliship.

(3.) THE plaint in that suit was subsequently amended on December 15, 1910: (1.) By the addition of all the heirs of Mahommad Jan as defendants, who, it was alleged, were claiming the property as their personal property; and (2.) by adding a prayer for the declaration that the property in suit was wakf property and not the personal property of the defendants. No sanction of the Advocate-General was obtained for these amendments, and apparently the Advocate-General had nothing further to do with that suit at any later stage.