Temple meant for dedication to public be inferred as public one.

The appellant as the President of the Nurani Grama Jana Sabha, Nurani in Palghat seeks to set aside under section 84(3) of the Madras Hindu Religious Endowments Act, an order of the District Judge of South Malabar, holding that the three temples situated in that village are institutions to which the Act applies. The learned District Judge has set out the history of the institutions and his findings regarding certain aspects were not seriously canvassed before us. He expressed the opinion that the temples in question belong to the Nurani Grama Samuham consisting of the Nurani villagers, who manage the affairs of the temple by an elected committee. On behalf of the Endowments Board, the respondent in this appeal, this conclusion is not controverted, and it therefore becomes unnecessary to trace the history of the institutions and how they are being managed. That the Nurani Grama Samuham consists of a fluctuating body of villagers who’ are competent to hold and own property is also conceded on the side of the respondent and we need not therefore elaborate upon the nature of the endowment. In Sundara Ayyar’s Malabar Law, at pages 263 and 264, the learned author discusses the question about the nature of temples owned and founded by village communities who have migrated to Malabar from the East Coast and an expression of opinion is found there that it would probably not be easy to hold that these temples are public institutions whatever may be the right view to hold with respect to the temples founded by the other village communities. Reference is made in that connection to Yegnarama Dikshitar v. Gopala Pattar1.

The appellant’s learned counsel contended that the temples in question do not come within the definition of the term in section 9(12) of the Act for the reason that the ownership is vested in a village community who live an extremely corporate life and that the management is conducted by an executive body duly elected by the villagers as a whole. Such a body, according to judicial pronouncements, is capable of owning, holding and disposing of property and when it is found that the temple is the property of a corporate body of that character, it cannot be held that the public as such have any right in the temple. Whatever may be said with regard to allowing member’s of the public worshipping in these temples without explicit permission from the executive management, it is contended that the villagers have the right and authority to prohibit others than members of the village community from resorting to these temples for worship. Ordinarily no pious Hindu would decline permission for anyone to worship in a temple, and the not frequent instances of members belonging to other villages worshipping in the temple can be accounted by the fact that some kind of implied permission is given to them. It is therefore urged that this fact cannot convert the temples into public temples. The second argument of the learned counsel is that in this case there is no dedication to the public as such and if there is no dedication, the real kernel of the definition cannot be fitted in so far as these temples are concerned. We have to examine each of these arguments.

The difference between a public and a private trust is brought out in certain observations of Mitter, J., in Nabi Shirazi v. Province of Bengal1, which are to the following effect:

“The essential difference between a private and a public trust is that, in the former, the beneficiaries are definite and ascertained individuals or who, within a definite time, can be definitely ascertained, but, in the latter, the beneficial interest must be vested in an uncertain and fluctuating body of persons-either the public at large or some considerable portion of it answering a particular description.”

Learned counsel for the appellant relies upon this passage to show that in the present case the beneficiaries are definite and ascertained individuals, viz., the Tamil Brahmin community