Cochin Devaswom Board vs Vasupuram Devaswom and Others

Madhavan Nair J.

There was an O. P. in this court in connection with the affairs of the plaintiff Devaswom in which the Cochin Devaswom Board was made one of the respondents. The O. P. ended in a compromise between the parties and was therefore dismissed without costs. The Devaswom Board having incurred expenses in connection with their appearance through counsel in the O. P. realized the same from the Devaswom under threat of coercive process. The suit out of which this appeal arose was for recovery of the amount thus collected by the Board from the plaintiff Devaswom. The court below thought that costs having been not ordered to the Board by the order in the O. P. the Board was not entitled to collect the same from the Devaswom and therefore decreed the suit. This appeal is by the Board against that decree. The order as to costs in a judicial proceeding relates only to the mutual liability of the parties arrayed on either side in the proceedings. The O. P. was in regard to a suspension of the Urallers from office ordered by the Cochin Devaswom Board under their statutory powers under Act XV of 1950. It must then be that the Devaswom Board by virtue of the statutory powers was acting for the Devaswom when it suspended the Urallers from office and started an enquiry into their alleged mis-deeds. The Devaswom eo nomine was no party to the O. P. and therefore the order as to costs in the O. P. cannot concern the Devaswom. There could not be any adjudication in the O. P. of the liability for the expenses of the Board in connection with that O. P. as between the Devaswom and the Devaswom Board. The order disallowing costs made in the O. P. was therefore irrelevant to the present case.

Section 111 of Act XV of 1950 provides:

All expenses incurred by the Board and other charges leviable from an institution under Part II of this Act or the Cochin Hindu Religious Institutions Act I of 1081, or the rules framed thereunder shall be recoverable out of the funds of the institution.

There is no particular provision for reimbursement of expenses met by the Board in connection with legal proceedings in regard to the affairs of a Devaswom under their supervision. Of course, in Part I of the Act in regard to the affairs of the Devaswoms in Travancore there are section 44 authorizing all expenses incurred in carrying out the provisions of the Act to be defrayed out of the funds of the Devaswom concerned and Section 56 providing all costs and expenses in connection with legal proceedings in respect of the Devaswoms to which the Board was a party to be paid out of the Devaswom fund or the funds of the Devaswom concerned. There is no separate Section in Part II of the Act dealing with the affairs of the Cochin Devaswoms as to how the costs of the litigation in regard to their affairs are to be met by the Devaswom Board. A reading of Section 111, in Part II of the Act, in juxtaposition with the corresponding Sections 44 and 56 of Part I of the Act, shows that all matters that are provided for in Sections 44 and 56 of Part I of the Act in regard to the Travancore Devaswoms are covered by Section 111 in Part II relating to Cochin Devaswoms. It must then follow that all expenses incurred by the Board in regard to the affairs of the Devaswoms, inclusive of expenses incurred, by them for appearance in litigations in connections with the Devaswoms, have to be met by the Devaswom concerned. The levy of the expenses made by the Cochin Devaswom Board which gave rise to this suit must therefore be found lawful. The suit fails and is dismissed. The appeal is thus allowed with cost throughout.