A compromise agreement intended to prevent mutual obstruction of religious processions does not restrict a party's general legal right to conduct other lawful processions unless such restrictions are explicitly stated in the agreement.

Lord Blanesburgh. -

The suit out of which this appeal arises was instituted on the original side of the High Court at Madras by the appellant and another, since deceased, the two dharmakartas or trustees of a temple at Mylapore. The object of the suit was to establish by declaration and consequential injunction against the defendants, the trustees of an adjoining temple, the plaintiffs' alleged rights under an agreement stated to have been entered into on the 26th January 1846, by the then trustee of the defen dants' temple.

There were many defences raised to the suit, both technical and substantial, but the learned trial Judge, Mr. Justice Phillips, accepting the plaintiff's con struction of the document sued on as correct - and no other construction was apparently suggested to him by the defendants - repelled all these defences and by a judgment, dated the 18th February 1921, in substance decreed the suit. The respondents appealed to the High Court on its appellate side, and there raised a question of construction on which the decision of that Court ulti mately turned. By a decree and judg ment (reported in A.I.R. 1923 Mad. 344 - Ed.) of the 4th September, 1922, of the Chief Justice, Sir Walter Schwabe and Mr. Justice Wallace, who composed the Court, the decree of the trial Judge was reversed and the suit dismissed, for the reason that the plaintiffs had, in the opinion of the Court, misconstrued the agreement sued on, and were not entitled in the circumstances to any relief at all. Dismissing the suit on that ground, the learned Judges in terms refrained from pronouncing any opinion upon the suffi ciency or otherwise of the defences set up by the defendants as a further answer to it. The surviving plaintiff appeals.

The appellant's temple is known as the Audikesavaperumal Peyalwar Temple, and is of great antiquity. In these pro ceedings it has been referred to as the "Y" temple. The respondents' temple is known as the Sri Vedanta Desikar Temple. It was built in or shortly after 1832. In these proceedings it has been referred to as the "U" temple. The two temples about on the same street in Madras, and their entrances are within a few yards of each other. They belong to rival sects, and owing to the fact that the ritual of each involves many processions, the pre liminary ceremonies of which have to be performed in the street while their re curring celebrations frequently occur on the same day, it follows that the services of both temples in their completeness can only be carried out without inconvenience, friction and confusion to both sets of worshippers if there be present either a spirit of mutual accommodation or the exercise of some degree of external control.

The appellant's "Y" temple is not only the older ; it is also the more important institution of the two. In 1816, at the date of the agreement in suit, the one idol in the "D" temple was Sri Vedanta. Desikar, and that god had only been there installed for at most thirteen years There was then extant a decision of the Sudder Court that no new procession and no procession for any newly installed deity could be lawfully carried on in the streets, and that anyone objecting to any such procession might apply to the Court and obtain an injunction restraining it. In these circumstances, and most probably because the installation of the idol in the "U" temple had been so comparatively recent, the authorities of the "Y" temple were in 1846 objecting that all processions from the "U" temple were illegal, and their Lordships feel little doubt that the terms of the agreements between the two temples then arrived at, and with which the present suit is concerned, are to be explained and their true effect ascertained by reference to the view or belief of both parties that the law as to processions enunciated by the Sudder Court was in truth the law of the land.

Two agreements were apparently en tered into in that year. One of them only, the document sued on is extant The recital of