Term of office of trustee limited to five years.

Sri Annadhana Vinayagar Temple at Asariar Street, Tirumangalam,. was founded by the Arya Vysya Kasukkara Chetty community of the village. Admittedly, the temple was managed by the community by electing a trustee from amongst themselves. The petitioner who has been holding office for over 30 years as trustee was presumably elected by the community to such office. There is nothing on record to show for what period a trustee elected by the community functions. The case for the petitioner is that a trustee elected by the community would be entitled to hold office for life or till removed by the community. Although the counter-affidavit filed by the Deputy Commissioner of Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (Administration) Department recognised that the community managed the temple by electing a trustee from time to time, it is not stated for how long a trustee elected by the community would hold office.

On 27 th December, 1957, the Assistant Commissioner, Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments, Madurai, issued a notice to the petitioner saying that the affairs of Sri Annadhana Vinayagar temple at Tirumangalam were not managed properly and calling upon him to show cause why a legally constituted trustee should not be appointed for the temple. The case for the petitioner is that the Assistant Commissioner was persuaded to take action against him at the instance of a disgruntled tenant of the temple who was colluding with the first respondent Raman Chettiar. To resume the narrative, the petitioner submitted his explanation to the Assistant Commissioner ; he claimed that he was a lawfully appointed trustee and that there was no ground to remove him and to appoint another. After this explanation, one would have expected the Assistant Commissioner to enquire into the matter and find out (i) whether the petitioner was a lawful trustee; (ii) whether he was guilty of misconduct and negligence with which he was charged and if so, whether he should be removed and a new trustee should be appointed. But the Assistant Commissioner did none of these things. From this circumstance one can infer that he found nothing to justify the charges made against the petitioner in his communication, dated 27th December, 1957 and that he dropped the proceedings. But curiously enough, the Area Committee for the region adopted what evidently appeared to be a short-cut of the whole business. They appointed the first respondent as the trustee. It is obvious that they would have no jurisdiction to do so, if the petitioner was functioning as the lawful trustee. As I said earlier, there was no investigation into the charges made against the petitioner by the Assistant Commissioner and he not having been removed from the office of trusteeship, would continue to hold that office, if he was the lawfully appointed trustee. The petitioner feeling aggrieved by the appointment of the first respondent as trustee by the Area Committee, filed an application to the Commissioner, Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments, to set aside that order. The Commissioner appears to have assumed that the petitioner was a de facto trustee and held that as a trustee had been appointed by the legally constituted authority, viz., the Area Committee, the petitioner could no longer function as the trustee of the temple and upheld the appointment of the first respondent. It is the validity of the order of the Commissioner that is challenged in the Writ Petition.

I must confess that the order of the Commissioner is a bit surprising. For one thing, there has been no adjudication so far of the petitioner’s case that he was the lawfully appointed trustee. The Deputy Commissioner in his counter-affidavit filed in this case recognises the fact that the community has been appointing trustees from time to time. There is no material on record to show that the petitioner was elected by the community to function as the trustee of the temple only for a limited period and that period has ex