The court emphasized the legal duty to protect the interests of deities, treating them as perpetual minors, and allowed extensions based on good faith representations in a case involving property disputes.

JUDGMENT :

1. Heard learned Counsel appearing for the parties.

2. The present hearing arises out of three separate applications seeking extension of the time to file written objection to an injunction application filed in a suit challenging a deed in the Trial Court.

3. The short background is that the plaintiffs/appellants, being the appellant no.1 / deity and the appellant no.2, one Swapna Mukherjee, claiming to be a Shebait of the deity, filed a suit challenging a deed, in which an ad interim prayer for injunction at the behest of the plaintiffs / appellant was refused. Challenging the same, an appeal bearing FMA 929 of 2023 was preferred before this Court. By an order dated March 03, 2025, this Court had allowed the appeal on contest, thereby granting ad interim order of injunction restraining the defendants / respondents from acting on the strength of the impugned sale deed dated July 02, 2015 as well as from transferring, alienating and / or creating any third party interest or parting with possession in respect of the suit property till disposal of the injunction application pending in the Trial Court.

4. While doing so, this Court had also directed that the respondents shall file their respective written objections to the injunction application in the Court below, if not already filed, within three weeks from the said date, i.e., from March 03, 2025, whereupon the learned Trial Judge shall endeavour to dispose of the injunction application itself as expeditiously as possible in the interest of justice.

5. Learned Senior Counsels appearing for the respective applicants in CAN 3 of 2025 and CAN 4 of 2025 submit that although their written objections were affirmed within time and copies thereof were served also within time, the filing of the same was postponed till the next date of hearing of the injunction application in the Trial Court, which was previously fixed on June 10, 2025.

6. There were certain dates allotted by the learned Trial Judge in the interregnum which, however, according to the petitioners, not dates for hearing of the injunction application. It is submitted that the hearing of the injunction application was interdicted by applications for addition of party filed by the present proposed interveners, namely Raktima Chatterjee and others and Somesh Mukhopadhyay (who have filed affidavits-in- opposition to the present applications for extension) by filing put up petitions.

7. It is contended that since the prayer is innocuous, this Court ought not to enter into the merits of the respective contentions of the parties, which shall be decided in the suit itself.

8. In view of the bona fides of the petitioners, it is submitted that the timeline for filing of the written objections, which have already been filed physically in the Trial Court but not accepted, be extended.

9. Learned Counsel appearing for the proposed interveners / objectors submit that they represent the true interest of the plaintiff / appellant no.1 / deity. Learned Counsel appearing for Raktima Chatterjee, one of the objectors, submits that in the interregnum, due to activities adverse to the interest of the deity on the part of the plaintiff / appellant no.1 Swapna Mukherjee, colluding with the defendants in the suit, the said Raktima Chatterjee along with certain other Shebaits were compelled to remove Swapna Mukherjee from the role of the authorized Shebait to represent the interest of the deity in the litigation.

10. It is submitted that applications for addition of party at the behest of Raktima Chatterjee and others and Somesh Mukhopadhyay are now pending in the Trial Court. Whereas Raktima and her co-applicants claim to be Shebaits of the deity, Somesh, the son of Swapna (plaintiff/appellant no. 2) seeks to be impleaded to protect the interest of the deity.

11. It is further submitted that the respondents /present applicants have sought extension on a mala fide basis. It is contended that the premise of the applications for extension is that the