JUDGMENT

1. Many of the facts which transpire in this case were before the Judicial Committee in a case Ram Charan Ramanuj Das v. Gobinda Ramanuj Das 56 IA 104 : 114 Ind. Cas. 571 : AIR 1929 PC 65 : 33 CWN 346 : 29 LW 428 : 49 CLJ 321 : 31 B. LR 715 : (1929) ALJ 414 : 56 MLJ 636 : (1929) MWN 427, and their Lordships' appreciation of them is very useful for the decision of this case.

2. In the town of Chandrakona in the District of Midnapore, located in the Nayagunj quarter of the town, there is a famous Math of the Ramanuj soot of Baishnavas. The earliest that is known of this religious and charitable foundation is that in 1810 when one Lachman Ramanuj Das was the Mahant of this institution, having succeeded one Mahant Gopaldas in that office, and when one of the deities installed there was the idol Sree Sree Gopinath Jiu, one Nitai Singh made a gift by a document addressed to him as "To the highly respected Sreejut Lachman Ramanujdas Mahant Maharaj Goswamiji." The document was dated Magh 16, 1247, and was registered on the 24th of that month corresponding to February 4, 1840. The deed purported to deal with certain lauded properties in Parganas Brahmanbhumi and Bagri which were described as the self-acquired properties of the donor and also certain other landed properties of which it was said that the donor had obtained them from his father-in-law one Abadhut Singh, then deceased; all the said properties being detailed in a schedule appended to it. It purported to make a gift of an 8 annas share of the said properties:

for the worship of Sree Sree Gopinath Jiu of Chandrakona and of Sree Sree Sitaram Jiu who was to be installed in a temple which had been erected near his house (which upon the evidence appears to have been situate at Shamchandpur, a place about 14 miles distant from Chadrakona) and for the feeding of the mendicants and the poor.

3. And it was provided thus:

You shall, by holding possession of the aforesaid properties and declaring the same to belong to Sree Sree Iswar Jiu Thakur and on payment of rents to the landlords of the rent paying properties out of the same go on managing down to your disciple, disciple's disciple and so on in succession, the sheba and worship of Sree Sree Iswar Jiu Thakur and the feeding of Sadhus, chance guests and visitors thereof.

4. The deed shows that at. that date he kept for the family the other 8 annas share of the properties but provided that the same would be dedicated to the sheba and worship of the said two deities after the termination of the lives of himself, a widowed mother-in-law of his, his two wives and his daughter one Shyama Sundari.

5. The provision last mentioned was given effect toby Shyama Sundari, who apparently was the last of the family to die. She on Chaitra 3, 1277, ( = March 15, 1870) executed a deed of gift addressed to ''Sree-jut Lachman Ramanuj Das Mahant Maharaj Goswamiji," and describing him as "successor of the late Mahant Gopaldas, resident of Nayagunj Bara Asthal, Pargana Chandrakona," dedicating the other 8 annas share of the properties in terms similar to those contained in Nitai Singh's deed of gift.

6. On Bhadra 27, 1285, B.S. ( = September 11, 1878) Lachman Ramanuj Das made a will appointing Bharat Das, his disciple, to be his successor-in-office. Of this document the Judicial Committee has said:

The document is in the form of a letter attested by various witnesses and addressed to the appointee, and the appointment is per verba de presenti; but the document is described as a will and was registered as such, and the appointment was only to operate upon the date of the appointor. In this document Lachman describes himself as the Gadinashin Mahant of the well-known Akhara Bara Asthal wherein two known idols of Raghunath Jiu and Gopinath Jiu and other idols have been installed from the time of his predecessors and to which certain other Asthals described in the schedule, and also in his possession, are said to be subordinate, of all of which he is owner a