Suit of establish claim for the office of hereditary trustee barred.

In O.A.No.99 of 1939, proceedings instituted under section 84 of Madras Act II of 1927, the Board of Hindu Religious Endowments held that Sri Kanni Amman Temple, Manapakkam, Chingleput District, was an “excepted” temple as that was defined by Act II of 1927. That finding naturally implied that the trusteeship in that temple was hereditary.

It was common ground that Venkatachala was the founder of the temple.. The petitioners’ case was that after the death of Venkatachala, his son-in-law Kolaindavelu succeeded to the office of trustee. Kolandaivelu had three sons. The first petitioner claimed she was the heir to Kanniappa, one of the sons of Kolandaivelu, and that the second petitioner was the widow and heir of Rajamanicka, another son of Kolandaivelu. The petitioners claimed to have succeeded to the office of trustee on the death of Kolandaivelu’s sons.

The first respondent in his turn claimed that he was entitled to succeed to the office of trustee as he was the reversioner to the estate of Venkatachala. The first respondent filed an application, which was numbered as O.A.No.17 of 1953, under section 57(b ) of Madras Act XIX of 1951. The Deputy Commissioner eventually decided that application ex parte the petitioners, on 27th January, 1955. The Deputy Commissioner upheld the claim of the first respondent, that it was he and not the petitioners that was entitled to succeed to the office of hereditary trustee of the temple. The petitioners appealed to the Commissioner, who dismissed that appeal on 15th April, 1955.

The petitioners thereupon applied to this Court under Article 226 of the Constitution for the issue of a writ of certiorari to set aside the order of the Deputy Commissioner, dated 27th January, 1955. The two main grounds put forward by the learned counsel for the petitioners in support of the application were (1) that the Deputy Commissioner had no jurisdiction under section 57(b) of Act XIX of 1951 to decide who was entitled to succeed to the office of the hereditary trustee of the temple, when there was no dispute at all over the question, whether the office of trustee in this temple was hereditary, and (2) even if the Deputy Commissioner had jurisdiction to decide this question, its exercise was vitiated in this case ; the decision on 27th January, 1955, which was ex parte the petitioners, amounted to a denial of reasonable opportunity to the petitioners to present their defence to the claim of the first respondent before the Deputy Commissioner.

Section 57(b) of Act XIX of 1951 runs:

“Subject to the rights of suit or appeal hereinafter provided, the Deputy Commissioner shall have power to inquire into and decide the following disputes and matters:-

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(b) whether a trustee holds or held office as a hereditary trustee.”

The question for determination now is, when there was no dispute that the trusteeship of the temple was hereditary, and when the only dispute between the first respondent on the one hand and the petitioners on the other was who was entitled to succeed to that office, did that dispute come within the scope of section 57 (b) ? If it did not, the Deputy Commissioner could have had no jurisdiction to decide that dispute.

It can be taken as settled law that a right to succeed to a hereditary office is a right to property. A claim to such a right is normally cognisable by a civil Court, unless that jurisdiction is ousted by statute either expressly or by necessary intendment. Section 93 of Act XIX of 1951 runs: “No suit or other legal proceeding in respect of the administration of management of a religious institution or any other matter or dispute for determining or deciding which provision is made in this Act shall be instituted in any Court of law, except under, and in conformity with the provisions of this Act.”

The bar imposed by section 93 would thus apply to determination by a civil Court of any dispute for determining or deciding which a provision has been made in the Act, that is, Act XIX o