Judgement

Appeal from a judgment and decree of the Court of the Judicial Commissioner (April 29, 1916) varying the decree of the Additional District Judge of Buldana.

The suit was instituted against Raja Baji Rao, the deceased father of the present appellant, with sanction granted under s. 539 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1882, to remove him from the management of the properties of a Hindu shrine, and for the appointment of a new trustee. The facts material to this report appear from the judgment of their Lordships.

The learned Judicial Commissioners in the course of their judgment said " The first question is whether the sansthan is a public trust. Of this we have no doubt whatever. It is a view well established that a trust for a Hindu idol and temple is to be regarded in India as prima facie created for public

17 Law. Rep. 48 Ind. App. 12 ( 1920- 1921)

Raja Anand Rao V. Ramdas Daduram 118

charitable purposes. This presumption has not been rebutted by any evidence given in this case. On the contrary the learned District Judge has set out a chain of evidence going to show that the temple or shrine now in dispute, though founded by a remote ancestor of the family of which the appellant claims to be the chief representative at the present time, has been treated for centuries as a public institution, and has been maintained and enriched as such by grants from successive local governments, made from public revenues and by votive offerings laid at the feet of the idol by worshippers of the deity. We do not think that the evidence showing the institution to be a public trust is in any degree rebutted by the circumstances that the management of it has remained in the hands or subject to the control of the founder and his family, that no public body has ever been appointed to supervise the trust, that the successive managers of the trust have never rendered accounts to any one, that they have never admitted accountability to any one, and that the surplus income has been appropriated for centuries to the private purposes of the trustee and his family. .... We do not lose sight of the class of institution where a founder applies his own property to the creation of a pagoda or any other religious or charitable foundation, and we recognize the fact that the mere giving of permission to the public to resort to such an institution and make use of it to gain religious merit or obtain charity will not make it a public endowment or control the wishes and pleasure of the founder as to its continuance or disposal. But that is not the position here." They said, however, that the same evidence that led to the conclusion that the institution was a public trust established that the right of management was vested in the successive rajas by usage, and that the lower Court had no power in the suit to prevent the devolution of the trust in Baji Raos successor. With regard to the contention that the suit abated upon Baji Raos death they said " We think that the lower Court had no justification for treating a prayer to remove Raja Baji Rao from office as being equally a prayer for the removal of his successor to that office. But the further prayer that the Court should frame a scheme so as to remedy the existing abuses, invoking the exercise of its control by the Court over a public trust, was one which survived the death of the trustee for the time being, and was rightly granted against his legal representative.

1920. Nov. 9. De Gruyther K.C. and Dube for the appellant.

The respondents did not appear.

Nov. 12. The judgment of their Lordships was delivered by

LORD DUNEDIN. In this case there was a sansthan known as the Sansthan of Sri Balaji at Peth Deolgaon in a taluk of the Buldana District. The rajas of the family, who are at present represented by the appellant Raja Anand Rao, were the hereditary keepers of this shrine. Certain mismanagement had taken place in the lifetime of the father of the present raja, and a suit was then instituted by certain