MAHANT RAMDHAN PURI Vs. MTPARBATI KUAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This second appeal is concerned with the indebtedness of a math known as the Islam pur Math, situated in the Bihar Sub-division of the Patna District. The original debt amounting to the sum of Rs. 3,000 was contracted by Mahant Madho Puri who died in the year 1912. His successor Mahant Mahabir Puri brought the total indebtedness up to the sum of Rs. 12,000. In 1917 this Mahant for the satisfaction of this debt executed a permanent mokarrari of village Chak Barai, being one of the Math properties, for a premium of Rs. 12,000 and an annual rental of Rs. 5. Eight annas of the mokarrari was in favour of defendants 1 to 4 or their predecessors-in-interest, four annas in favour of defendants 5 to 7 and the remaining four annas was in favour of certain Mahtos. Mahant Mahabir Puri abdicated in 1919, and on 1 April 1920 his successor Mahant Bed Narain Puri brought Title Suit No. 87 of 1920 in the Court of the Second Subordinate Judge of Patna for cancellation of the mokarrari and recovery of possession over the property.

(2.) On 12 May 1921 this suit ended in a compromise whereby Bed Narain recovered an eight annas share and left the remaining eight annas in possession of the three sets of mokarraridars on a rental of Rupees 2-8-0. Out of the debt of Rs. 12,000 the sum of Rs. 569 had been paid in cash and Rs. 580 had been paid as Government revenue, while the balance of Rs. 10,851, which appears to have been mostly covered by usufructuary mortgages, had not been paid. Out of this balance Bed Narain contracted to pay the sum of Rs. 3,551 and the mokarraridars were to pay the balance of Rs. 7,301. There is some dispute as to whether the mokarraridars did pay this balance or whether Bed Narain paid it, but: this matter was not put in issue between the parties and has not been decided by the lower Courts. In the year 1926 Bed Narain abdicated and was succeeded by the present plaintiff Mahant Ramdhan Puri. The plaintiff's case is that he approached the mokarraridars and represented that their mokarrari was illegal with the result that the Mahtos gave up the two annas share which had been left to them after the compromise.

(3.) In the year 1929 he brought the present suit against defendants 1 to 7 in respect of the remaining six annas share on the ground that the loans if really taken by the Mahants were not for justifiable necessity and were not binding on the Math properties. Defendants 1 to 7 contested the suit on the ground that the loans were for legal necessity and for the benefit of the math. The Subordinate Judge who tried the case held that only Rs. 1,200 out of the debts contracted by Mahabir and the sum of Rs. 580 paid as Government revenue had been proved to be for legal necessity. The Additional Distict Judge on appeal held that the sum of Rs. 3,000 borrowed by Madho and the sum of Rs. 580, Government revenue, were for legal necessity, but not the balance of the debt. Both Courts however dismissed the suit on the ground that the plaintiff was bound by the compromise entered into by Bed Narain. The plaintiff has therefore appealed to this Court.