Trustee cannot be surcharged with vicarious liability.

V. Balasubrahmanyan, J.

1. There is a Temple for Sree Veeraraghava Perumal in Tiruppur town. The Temple needed renovation. Some of the members of the public formed themselves into a Thiruppani Committee in 1953. They then proceeded to renovate the Temple with the aid of funds collected from the public. The renovation was completed and the Kumbabishekam was performed in 1969. In the following year, the Local Fund Audit Department audited the Tiruppani accounts and found several irregularities. Based on their report, departmental proceedings were started for surcharging the members of the Tiruppani Committee. The Deputy Commissioner of Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments who conducted the surcharge proceedings ultimately passed an order surcharging two members of the Tiruppani Committee. One was the petitioner. He was a Trustee of the Temple. He occupied the office of Secretary of the Tiruppani Committee. The other was the convener of the Tiruppani Committee. The Deputy Commissioner surcharged both these persons with a joint and several liability for Rs. 63,764. The petitioner thereupon moved the Sub-Court under Section 90(4) of the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Act, 1959 for relief against the order of surcharge. But the Sub-Court dismissed the petition and sustained the order of surcharge against the petitioner.

2. In this revision against the Sub-Court's order, Mr. N. Venkatarama Iyer, the petitioner's learned Counsel, urged that the entire surcharge proceedings were without jurisdiction. Learned Counsel pointed out that the petitioner was surcharged solely for the reason that he was the Secretary of the Tiruppani Committee, and not on the basis of any evidence against him of any turpitude. Learned Counsel submitted that the liability for surcharge does not comprehend any vicarious liability. Mr. Venkatarama Iyer raised another objection to the surcharge order against his client based on the position occupied by him in the Tiruppani Committee. He said that the petitioner was mistakenly treated as the ex officio Secretary of the Tiruppani Committee. Learned Counsel said that while the petitioner was a trustee of the Temple, a Temple trustee is not treated by the law as an ex officio Secretary of the Tiruppani Committee in all cases., Learned Counsel pointed out that the rule was that wherever a temple had an Executive Officer, he alone was the ex-officio Secretary of the Tiruppani Committee, and it is only in the case of the Temple which has no Executive Officer at all, or whether Executive Officer was absent, that the Temple Trustee becomes the ex-officio Secretary of the Committee. Learned Counsel pointed out that, at all material times, this Temple had an Executive Officer, and that meant the petitioner could not be regarded as a member of the Tiruppani Committee, much less its Secretary, merely by virtue of his being the Temple Trustee.

3. The learned Government Pleader, however, submitted that the petitioner in this case was the sole trustee of this Temple, and, under the relevant statutory rules, the sole trustee automatically becomes ex-officio Secretary of the Temple Tiruppani Committee also. On a study of the statutory rules, namely, The Management and Preservation of Properties of Religious Institutions Rules, 1952, I must accept Mr. Venkatarama Iyer's contentions and reject the Government Pleader's. Rule 54(3) of the Rules is as follows:

The Executive Officer of the temple, or in his absence, the Trustee of the Temple if there is only one trustee or the Chairman, Board of Trustees, as the case may be, shall be the secretary and treasurer and member of the Committee. In special cases, any other member of the Committee may be elected by the Committee as Treasurer, subject to the approval of the appropriate authority. The Treasurer shall attend to the correspondence and maintenance of accounts relating to the collection of donations, etc., and expenditure incurred out of them.

4. The rule does not pos