Civil courts lack jurisdiction over disputes concerning endowment properties governed by the Endowments Act, and jurisdictional issues must be resolved through a full trial.

ORDER :

B S Bhanumathi, J.

This petition is filed under Article 227 of the Constitution of India against the order dated 09.03.2023 dismissing I.A.No.297 of 2022 in O.S.No.121 of 2018 on the file of the court of II Additional Junior Civil Judge, Guntur filed by the petitioner/5^th defendant against the 1^st respondent/plaintiff under Order VII, rule 11 of CPC to reject the plaint for want of statutory jurisdiction.

2. The case of the petitioner is briefly as follows:

The petitioner/5th defendant temple is a public institution which is under the purview and administrative control of the Endowments Department of Government of Andhra Pradesh. The 1^st respondent/plaintiff stated in the plaint that the schedule mentioned property originally belongs to the petitioner/5^th defendant temple and the inmates of the locality acquired their respective properties from the 5^th defendant temple and they are using the temple’s vacant land shown as EFGH in plaint plan for ingress and egress and the plaintiff is also claiming right to use the said portion for her passage and also mentioned that there was well in that area left out by the temple. Originally, the entire land in town survey numbers 567, 568 in which the plaint schedule property is part and parcel, belongs to the petitioner/ 5^th defendant temple and was regularized in favour of encroachers about 40 years back as per the decision of the government on nominal amount vide G.O. Rt.No.1561, Revenue Department, dated 24.09.1980, in that plot No.33 was allotted to D.Suseelamma who is the mother of 1^st respondent/plaintiff and now she is in possession of the said plot No.33 and also plot No.32, while plot No.30 is Sri Vinayaka Swamy Temple and the old well and its site situated on the back side are of the temple. The site on the back side of the Ganesh temple as shown in the plaint plan was totally belongs to the temple and neither the plaintiff nor the other occupants in the vicinity have any right over the said site as shown in the plaint plan, except a small gully left over at that time for their ingress and egress into the main road situated on the eastern side of the plaint plan. Every occupier has passage in front of the respective encroachment to reach the main road. Even now, there is a passage to the plaintiff to directly reach the main road without passing over the portion as shown in EFGH and ABCD in plaint plan. In fact, there is a gully passage in front of the plaintiff and also her neighbours on her left side and right side which passes along with EG in plaint plan to reach main road without coming into EFGH portion and ABCD pathway. The plaintiff occupied even the front side pathway originally provided, and raised construction. Thereby, created obstruction of way to the neighbours and tried to close the gully portion left over by the petitioner/5th defendant temple for ingress and egress. There is an emergency door way provided into the said gully by the adjacent Fancy Merchants Association Kalyana Mandapam. The plaintiff extended her construction into the site left over as pathway and tried to make her entrance into the temple site in plot No.30 unauthorizedly and illegally. Hence, there arose disputes among the plaintiff and the 6^th defendant which culminated into filing the present suit, as well as the prior suit in O.S. No.331/2017 on the file of I Additional Junior Civil Judge Court, Court, Guntur. Admittedly, there is another suit filed by plaintiff in O.S.No.331/2017 on the file of I Addl. Junior Civil Judge Court, Guntur regarding the same facts as mentioned in the present suit for the same kind of relief of injunction. Hence, the present suit for same relief is not maintainable and this Court shall not proceed with the trial of the present suit. The 1^st respondent/plaintiff is raising a dispute over an endowment property for which the common law has no application and the Endowments Act 30/1987 only applies. The proper authority to decide the dispute is the AP Endowments T