The central legal point established is that the Charity Commissioner must ensure the sale of trust property is beneficial to the Trust and its beneficiaries, and the price offered is the best in all respects, considering the market value and the facts of the case.

1) Rule with the consent of the parties made returnable forthwith and heard.

2) The above petition filed under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India takes exception to the order dated 15/02/2011 passed by the Joint Charity Commissioner, Nagpur, by which order the application filed by the respondent No.1Trust under Sec.36 (1) (a) of the Bombay Public Trust Act was disposed of by granting permission to the respondent No.1Trust to sell the property in question to the respondent No.2 herein.

3) The questions which are arise for consideration in the above petition as to whether the price offered by the respondent No.2 herein for the property in question is the market price of the property? And whether the order passed meets the requirements of Section 36 (1) (a) of the Bombay Public Trust Act? (Hereinafter referred to for brevities sake as the “said Act”).

4) The factual matrix involved in the above petition can be stated thus The petitioner is the trustee of the respondent No.1Trust and was at the relevant time the Treasurer of the said Trust. The application under Section 36 (1) (a) of the said Act is in respect of the sale of property bearing Survey No.124 admeasuring 7 hectares and 70 ares, which would be referred to hereinafter as the “said Trust property”, on the ground of augmenting the facilities for the devotees during the “NavratraUtsav”. The respondent No.1Trust was desirous of constructing SabhaMandap (Hall), which could be used for generating income by letting it out on rent. Since funds were required for construction of the hall, the respondent No.1Trust in it’s meeting dated 05/02/2008 resolved to sell the said Trust property by issuing an advertisement in the newspapers. Accordingly advertisements were issued on 15/02/2008 and 17/02/2008 in the local newspapers. In terms of the said advertisement, the last date for submitting the tenders was 02/03/2008. It appears that pursuant to the said advertisement, three offers were received amongst which the offer of the respondent No.2 was Rs.4,01,100/per acre, whereas the offers given by the two other bidders were much lower at Rs.2,01,000/per acre and Rs.1,30,000/per acre. Since the offers received were not to the satisfaction of the respondent No.1Trust, in the meeting dated 03/03/2008, it was decided to again issue a fresh advertisement in the local newspapers so as to get better offers. Accordingly, advertisement was issued in the various local newspapers. As per the said advertisement, the last date for submitting the offers was 13/03/2008. In terms of the said advertisement, the petitioner and the other two bidders gave their revised offers on 13/03/2008. The respondent No.2 gave a revised offer of Rs.6,02,500/per acre which was the highest. After negotiations, the respondent No.2 increased its offer to Rs.6,10,000/per acre and, therefore, the total offer of the respondent No.2 for the said Trust property was in the sum of Rs.1,16,01,590/-. The respondent No.1Trust accordingly accepted the said offer and entered into an agreement and applied to the learned Joint Charity Commissioner for according sanction to the sale of the said Trust property to the respondent No.2 with whom it had entered into an agreement. The learned Joint Charity Commissioner in turn directed the respondent No.1Trust to invite objections in respect of the said proposed sale to the respondent No.2. Accordingly, the respondent No.1Trust issued a notice in a local newspaper inviting objections. The petitioner accordingly submitted his objection. It was the contention of the petitioner that the price offered by the respondent No.2 was much lower than the market price prevailing for the land in question. The petitioner also offered a price of Rs.17,00,000/- per acre by filing his affidavit. In response to the said affidavit filed by the petitioner, the respondent No.1 filed its additional affidavit on 06/12/2010.

5) The learned Joint Charity Commissioner considered the applic