The main legal point established in the judgment is that temples are included as public religious trusts and are exempted from the provisions of the Rent Control Act under G.O.M.s No.2000.

1. The petitioner, who is a tenant under a temple having suffered a decree of eviction and fought all the way up to Supreme Court, is now before this court making a last ditch to resist execution on the ground that the exemption from provisions of Tamil Nadu Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Act, 1960 under G.O.M.s No.2000, dated 16.8.1976 (herein after referred to as G.O) will not cover buildings owned by temples. The executability of the decree for eviction obtained by the respondent in O.S.No.2504 of 1976 was challenged by an application under Section 47, Civil Procedure Code, which was dismissed by the Court below. The civil revision petition is against this order.

2. Mr.T.N. Rajagopal, learned counsel for the petitioner vehemently argued that the building owned by temples are not exempted from the provisions of the Tamil Nadu Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Act, 1960 and hence the decree passed by the Civil Court against the petitioner is not executable. According to the learned counsel, if in the G.O. the word ‘public religious trusts’ was intended to include temples then the same would have been mentioned by way of Explanation in G.O. itself. The very fact that such explanation is absent would mean temples would still have to go before the Rent Controller for evicting their tenants. According to him this question had not been considered hitherto but it was assumed by everyone that buildings owned by temples were expect from the Rent Control Act. If the G.O. is properly construed, it would be clear that it only exempts religious public trusts and not temples. G.O.Ms.No.1998 dated 12.8.1974 exempted all buildings owned by Hindus, Christians and Muslim religious trusts and charitable institutions from the provisions of the Tamil Nadu Act 18 of 1960. Subsequently, G.O.Ms.No.2000 was passed in supersession of the above G.O. Though in the additional written statement the objection was taken regarding the validity of the above two G.O.s, the question of the applicability of G.O.Ms.2000 was not specifically advanced. Since an issue of jurisdiction went to the root of the matter, the petitioner was entitled to raise it at this stage though for the first time. The contention of the learned counsel for the petitioner is that there is a difference between the religious trusts and religious institutions and that is, why G.O.Ms.1998 uses the words ‘religious trusts’ and ‘charitable institutions’ and therefore religious trusts is not equivalent to religious institution which alone would include a temple. Therefore, the respondent cannot avail of the G.O. and the decree for eviction was inexecutable.

3. Mr. K. Chandra Mouli, learned senior counsel for the respondent would submit that it was as if the various decisions on G.O.Ms.No.2000 were arrived on a misconception that public religious trusts included temples but only upon the clear understanding by the Supreme Court and this court that temples were included as public religious trusts. According to the learned senior counsel this petition is nothing but a ruse to evade eviction and the Court below had rightly treated it with the respect that it deserved.

4. The Tamil Nadu Public Trusts Act, which was enacted to regulate tenancies in relation to public trusts includes ‘temples’ within the definition of public trusts. Under this act, cultivating tenants, of a public trust were treated as a special class just as this G.O. exempts certain classes of tenants. The City Tenants Protection Act was amended by Act 2 of 1996. As per this amendment, the provisions of the Act would not apply to “Religious Institutions” and “Religious charity” and “Temple” was clearly included under the definition “Religious Institution”. The HR & CE. Act has its definition of ‘religious endowment’, ‘religious institution’ and ‘temple’. We see therefrom a religious endowment means, inter alia, property belonging to or given to or endowed for the support of temples. ‘Religious Institution’ means a ‘