KARAVADI MANIKYA RAO Vs. NALLURI ADENNA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This petition raises really a very simple point for determination whether one trustee after the death of two co-trustees can sue a tenant, who took a land belonging to the trust on lease, for recovery of arrears of rent. The learned District Munsiff answered this question in the negative and dismissed a suit filed by the petitioner to recover Rs. 69-14-0 arrears of rent from the defendant on the ground that the two co-trustees who had joined in execution of a five years lease on 30 June, 1939, in favour of the defendant were dead and their legal representatives had not been impleaded.

(2.) The short facts are these. The trust property in question of an unusual type, namely, a village tank 7 acres and 29 1/2 cents, was leased out for five years to the defendant on 30th June, 1939, on a rental of Rs. 180 a year. It is common ground that the lease deed describes the plaintiff and two other executants as dharmakarthas of this cheruvu. The suit sought to recover only a balance of rent for the year ending 1944 from the defendant who is said to have cultivated with two others who had paid their share of the rent. The defendant pleaded discharge in the suit and filed two receipts which he claimed to have been given him by the brothers of the dead trustees.

(3.) The learned District Munsiff found these receipts to be not genuine and then went on to consider, the legal issue of the maintainability of the suit. Nowhere in the written statement is there any allegation that the suit was not maintainable on the ground that the legal representatives of the deceased trustees were not impleaded. There is a reference in the written statement to the legal representatives of the deceased trustees being entitled to receive the balance of rent due. That was merely to implement the discharge plea put forward that this rent had been paid to the brothers of the original trustees. The learned District Munsiff held that the legal representatives of the other co-trustees had to be joined under Section 45 of the Contract Act which clearly has no application. He was also guided by some observations in Vedakannu Nadar V/s. Ranganadha Mudaliar . The facts there however were entirely different. That litigation concerned the alienation of the office of the trustee of a charitable endowment for consideration and it was held that the alienation conferred no right on the alienee and could not be of any validity after the death of the alienor and cannot prejudice the rights of his sons who should be considered to be still trustees. The learned District Munsiff relied on some observations that no suit in regard to trust properties would be maintainable by one or some of the trustees only, if the remaining trustees are not before the Court either as plaintiffs or even as defendants.