YELAMANCHILI VENKATADRI Vs. VEDANTAM SESHACHARYULU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal from the judgment of the Subordinate Judge of Masulipatam, dated 31 January, 1945, by which he dismissed O.S. No. 65 of 1942 on the file of his Court. The appellants were the plaintiffs in the suit and are the trustees of the temple of Sri Vuddandaraya Venugopalaswami Varu of Pedda Maddali. They were appointed trustees on 29 March, 1940, in pursuance of a scheme framed by the Hindu Religious Endowments Board in 1939 for the management of the temple, and they brought the suit to eject defendants 1, 2 and 4 from certain properties and for a declaration that these properties belonged to the temple. The first and second defendants are the archakas of the temple, the third defendant is the hereditary trustee and the fourth defendant was impleaded as a lessee under defendants 1 and 2.

(2.) A number of issues were framed in the suit based on the contentions of the parties. Arguments in appeal, however, have been confined to the questions whether the grant of the properties in suit was to the temple and whether, if so, the defendants could be entitled, for any reason, to remain in possession. On those questions the plaint averments are that the properties belonged to the temple, and that defendants 1 and 2 had only been allowed to be in possession at the will of the plaintiffs and their predecessors as remuneration for their services. Defendants 1 and 2, on the other hand, maintained that the lands are archaka service inams or that, in any case, by usage and custom, they had acquired a right to enjoy the property so long as they were willing to perform the services to the temple required from archakas. The third defendant supported the case of defendants 1 and 2. The fourth defendant stated that he had handed over possession to the plaintiffs and was not a necessary party to the suit.

(3.) The properties in question in this appeal consist of the properties shown in the A and A-1 and B schedules attached to the plaint. Different considerations arise with regard to the B schedule properties and they will be dealt with separately. The A and A-1 schedule properties now consist of about 16 acres of wet lands, but the conversion of the lands from dry to wet appears to have been comparatively recent. The temple owns a further 26 acres of land in another village, but it is not disputed that these lands belong to the temple and that the income from them is devoted to temple purposes. It is clear from the Inam Statement (Ex. P-5) and the Inam Register (Ex. P-1) that the grant of the A and A-1 schedule properties was to the temple. The learned District Judge admitted this but for reasons, which will be examined in due course, he was of opinion that the grant was of the melwaram interest only. This opinion, however, made no difference to the reasoning on which his final conclusion was based as he was also of opinion that, although the initial grant had been of the melwaram interest only, the kudiwaramdar--one Tadanki Baskarayya Garu--had later made a gift to the temple of the kudiwaram rights. As regards the question of possession he did not believe the evidence for the plaintiffs that the trustees had ever been in possession of the lands, and he accepted the evidence for the defendants that the archakas had been in possession and enjoyment of the lands at least since the year 1905. He also seems to have been of opinion, although the judgment is not altogether clear on this point, that the archakas should be deemed to have been in possession from time immemorial for the reason that such evidence as there was showed that they had been in possession for any period to which the evidence related. He did not accept the contention that a case of lost grant should be presumed from the long possession of the archakas because, in his view, the grant of both warams had in fact been to the temple and not to the archakas ; but, nonetheless, after the citation of a number of authorities, he finally concluded that when it is established, as in the present case, that the archakas have been in very long possession of the property it must be presumed that they have been in possession legally and that they cannot be dispossessed as long as they carry out, the purposes for which they were put in possession of the property. Earlier in his judgment at the end of paragraph 24 he had held that as the archakas were in possession of the suit properties and were doing the service of nitya nivedya deeparadhana, to that extent they must be deemed to be the trustees and the plaintiffs cannot dispossess them.