MAHANTH JAGDISH DAS Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) At Pacharhi which is about 17 miles from Darbhanga, there is an asthal of which the present mahant is a young man who recently came of age. His manager and general attorney is the petitioner Damodar Narain Chaudhuri. During his minority, the mahant was under the tutelage of his natural father; and it appears that on the termination of his minority an attempt was made to demonstrate that he was still under age, but the mahant was declared to have come of age on 24th July 1936. A predecessor of the mahant had founded a Middle English School in the village, for the endowment of which he purchased some property in the character of President of the school; and though there is no regular trust deed, it appears that this property has been treated as set aside for the purposes of the school. The reigning mahant has been described as proprietor of the school, but in order to secure recognition by Government, it was necessary to comply with the requirements of the Education Code, and to appoint a regular managing committee. There was irregularity in the appointment and work of the committee, which led to protests from inspecting officers of the Education Department during the year 1934, with the result that a new committee was appointed consisting of the proprietor and two members nominated by him with other members elected by parents of the boys attending the school. The secretary of this committee was Babu Ramji Choudhuri, a pleader of Darbhanga, while two other lawyers of Darbhanga, Babu Nageshwar Misser and Babu Rambhujawan Jha, were members of the committee nominated by the proprietor, that is to say by the guardian of the mahant. When the mahant came of age he desired to assume active control of the school in his capacity of proprietor independently of this committee, and he desired that it should be recognized that he had the power of removing members whom he did not like, since the school was really his, because he provided the funds for its management. There was correspondence on this subject between the mahant and the secretary of the school, attended by a certain amount of exasperation, as a result of which a long period passed without a meeting of the managing committee, and inspecting officers again protested. The District Inspector of Schools was of opinion that the mahant could not remove members of the committee, but that they must be ballotted out at a meeting, whereas the mahant was determined that no meeting Bhould be held until the committee was reconstituted in accordance with his wishes. The Inspector had been insisting that a meeting should be held; and on 19 March 1937 he informed the secretary that the meeting of the managing committee should not be postponed on the grounds taken by the president, that is to say by the mahant. The Secretary, Babu Ramji Chaudhuri, summoned a meeting of the committee for 30 April 1937 of which the agenda was set out in a notice. This was, the sanction of leave of masters; to consider a petition of the teachers regarding their arrears of pay; to consider the questions of free studentship and of the appointment of a second master: to consider the orders of the president against a master Pandit Kedar Nath Chaudhuri; to consider the correspondence between the president and the secretary; to consider the resignation of a member of the committee, Babu Nageshwar Misser, and to ballot out one-third of the members of the committee. When the mahant received notice of this meeting, he replied that he would not permit it to be held. The secretary replied, pointing out that the school was not the personal property of the mahant; that he could not disband the committee by a mere stroke of the pen, and that the meeting must be held whether the mahant liked it or not.

(2.) On the afternoon of 30 April, Ramji Chaudhuri set out in a motor car from Darbhanga for the village taking with him Babu Nageshwar Misser, Babu Rambhujawan Jha and Babu Srinarain Das. On his way he called at the police station to ask for an escort to prevent a possible breach of the peace. The Assistant Sub-Inspector Babu Nand Singh was deputed to accompany Ramji Chaudhuri with a constable to Pacharhi. When they arrived they found a party of twenty five men or more gathered on the west of the school building. At noon on that day four servants of the mahant, Jaldhar Jha, Mauje Misser, Ritlal Jha and Yakub Khan armed with lathis had come to the school compound and remained on watch beneath a mango tree. At about 4 P.M. two other men Udit Narain Jha and Subhadar Misser, also armed with lathis, came to the place in the mahant's motor car.

(3.) They were followed by about twenty or twenty-five other men armed with lathis who joined them in the school compound. When Ramji Chaudhuri's party arrived from Darbhanga this mob surrounded the car. The Assistant Sub-Inspector asked them what they were doing, whereupon the petitioner Udit Narain Jha said that the mahant Jagdish Das and his manager Damodar Narain Chaudhuri had ordered that no meeting should be held, and that they were to attack Ramji Chaudhuri if he came to hold a meeting. The Assistant Sub-Inspector ordered the mob to disperse, and said that no meeting would be held, to which Ramji Chaudhuri assented and ordered his driver to turn the car round to return to Darbhanga. Thereupon Udit Narain Jha said that the order of the mahant and Damodar Narain Chaudhuri was that Ramji Chaudhuri should be beaten whether he held a meeting or not. Ramji Chaudhuri was attacked while he was in the car by lathis thrust through the door; the screen glass at the back was broken and he was assaulted by lathis thrust through the hole from behind; Ramji Chaudhuri emerged from the car and attempted to run away, but he was not permitted to run away and he was severely assaulted.