Mukherjea, J.- This appeal is on behalf of the defendant and it arises out of a suit, under section 92 of the Civil Procedure Code, commenced by the plaintiffs who were originally nine in number in the Court of the District Judge of Kaira at Nadiad. Out of the nine plaintiffs, only one is surviving, and he is now the sole respondent in this appeal, all the rest having died pending this protracted litigation, which began as early as the year 1928.

The case of the plaintiffs, in substance, was that one Kuberdas, who was a religious teacher and a holy man founded a cult known as Kaivalya or Karunasagar Panth, the principal tenet of which is, that the realisation of the Infinite is possible only through the medium of a Guru or spiritual preceptor. Kuberdas received money and lands from his followers and disciples and with this fund he built a temple at Sarsa. Kuberdas by will appointed his principal disciple Narayandas to succeed him on the Gudi and Narayandas built another and bigger temple wherein he installed an image of Kuberdas, with the images of two staff bearers on two sides. The Mahants after Narayandas were Baldevdas, Bhagwandas and Prasadji, who is the defendant in the suit a

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