Chinta Venkata Sundara Venugopalaswamy vs The President of the Board of Commissioners for the Hindu Religious Endowments

Varadachariar, J.—This appeal and the connected Revision Petition arise out of an application made to the District Judge of Ganjam u/s 84

of the Madras Hindu Religious Endowments Act. The Board had held that the temple in question to be a public temple and the petition was filed to

have that declaration set aside. As it has been held that this Court can deal with this matter only u/s 115, Civil Procedure Code, and that no appeal

lies against the decision of the District Court on such applications, it is not open to us to review the learned judge''s findings of fact. But we cannot

help thinking that in the present case, the conclusion of the learned District Judge has been arrived at on the basis of some erroneous assumption of

law and without sufficient realisation of the importance of coming to a definite conclusion as to whether at one time the temple was a private temple

or not.

We do not wish to say anything which will hamper the lower Court in coming to its own conclusion on remand. We wish to point out that in

view of the considerations adverted to in the learned Judge''s order as supporting the petitioner''s contention that, at the inception, the temple might

have been a private temple, the petitioner is entitled to invoke the aid of the observations of the Judicial Committee in Roman v. Achuthan Nair

(1934) 67 M.L.J. 788: L.R. 61 IndAp 405: ILR 58 Mad. 91 that if originally the temple was dedicated for the use of the founder''s family and was

a private trust, the fact of the admission of the public to the temple later on would not of itself necessarily affect the private character of the trust. It

therefore seems proper that we should ask the learned District Judge to come to a definite conclusion on the question whether originally the temple

was a private temple or not.

Again, the learned judge seems to think that the fact of properties being endowed in trust for this temple in 1900 itself amounts to a dedication to

a '' public '' purpose. This is not correct in law. The dedication of property will no doubt impress the property with the character of trust but it may

as well be a private trust as a public trust. The question whether the dedication was a public trust or not must be determined independently of the

factum of the dedication of property. The circumstance that similar language was used in other dedications made about the same time to a temple

which is admittedly public does not seem to us relevant because in the latter case, it is the admitted public character of the temple in favour of

which the endowment was made that makes the endowment public, and it will be begging the question to assume that in the present case also the

endowment so made must have been for a public purpose.

It is difficult for us to say how far the final conclusion of the learned judge has been influenced by errors and misconceptions on the above

points. We therefore think it proper to set aside the learned judge''s order and remand the case to the lower Court to be disposed of in the light of

the above observations. The appeal will be dismissed and the remand will be made in the Revision Petition. There will be no order as to costs in

the appeal and the costs in the Revision Petition will abide the result.