RAMAPRASADA RAO, J. :- The Corporation of Madras is the appellant. It figured as the third defendant in O.S. No. 59 of 1968 on the file of the First Additional City Civil Judge, Madras. Six plaintiffs claiming themselves to be members of a Sabha known as Arunadhateya Maha Sabha, filed the present suit for a declaration that the second defendant, who was its quondam President, cannot gift away the property belonging to the Sabha to the Corporation of Madras and that such a gift made by the second defendant or the Sabha to the Corporation

of Madras would not bind the plaintiffs as members of the Sabha. The first and the second defendants filed a written statement contending that the Sabha is not in existence as it was dissolved in 1966, that the property was purchased by the second defendant from his own funds and that under a valid resolution dated 9-7-1962 the property was gifted to the Corporation of Madras for running a maternity and child welfare centre and a dispensary. The Corporation of Madras contended that none of the plaintiffs excepting the second plaintiff was a member of the Sabha, and sought for a dismissal of the suit on that ground alone. In the main the defe