Necessity of sanction of Advocate General for filing appeal.

The Chief Justice.-The lower Court was right in dismissing the suit on the ground that the sanction of the Advocate-General had not been obtained for its institution. The suit clearly fell within the scope of section 92, Civil Procedure Code. The plaintiff on behalf of all persons interested in a fund which they call the"Mecca Mathinya Imthath Fund" prayed inter alia for a declaration that the defendants were the trustees of a trust known as ‘‘Mecca Mathinya Imthath Fund", for a true and proper account of the funds collected by the defendants, for a direction to the defendants to forward the funds collected by them to their proper destination and for the appointment of a receiver. It is well settled that to determine whether a suit falls within section 92, Civil Procedure Code, we have to look at the plaint and the allegations therein and not to the written statement. The plaint clearly proceeds on the footing that the defendants are trustees though the plaintiffs allege that the defendants had committed breach of trust. Because the defendants were repudiating the obligations on their part, the plaintiffs also wanted a declaration as to the trust nature of the funds collected by the defendants and their position as trustees. But the inclusion of such a prayer would not take the suit out of the category of suits falling under section 92, Civil Procedure Code. This is not a case in which the plaintiffs are suing to recover trust property from strangers or persons who according to the plaintiffs have no right to be in possession of the trust properties. On the other hand, the plaintiffs say that the defendants are trustees and are lawfully in possession of the funds; only they charge them with dereliction of duty. The prayers fall clearly within the scope of clauses (d) and (h) of section 92. Learned counsel for the plaintiffs appellants relied upon certain decisions in support of his contention that the suit did not fall within section 92, but none of the decisions has any real bearing on the question which falls to be decided in this case. In Jamal-ud-din v. Mujtab Husain1, the only prayer was for a declaration that the property in suit was endowed property and could not be inherited as ordinary property. The learned Judge pointed out that section 539 of the then Code corresponding to section 92 of the present Code provided for a case in which there was an alleged breach of any express or constructive trust created for public, charitable or religious purpose or whenever the direction of the Court is deemed necessary for the administration of any such trust. But the suit before them was not brought for any of the purposes enunciated in section 539, nor was it instituted for the granting of any such further or other reliefs as mentioned towards the end of that section. The learned Judges therefore held that the suit was maintainable without the sanction of the Advocate-General. Evalappa Mudaliar v. Balakrisknammal1 was concerned with a suit brought under section 92, Civil Procedure Code. All that the learned Judges decided there was that to a suit under section 92 a person who sets up title adverse to the trust could also be impleaded as a defendant though a decree could not be passed against him to deliver possession of the property. We need not refer in any detail to the Full Bench decision in the Tirumalai Tirupati Devastanam Committee v. Krishnayyan2, which cannot possibly have even the remotest bearing on the point now in dispute. In Ganapati Pujari v. Kaniyalal Marwari3 which was also relied upon it was held that as none of the reliefs prayed for in the case was of the nature set out in clauses (a) to (h) of sub-section (1) of section 92, there was no bar on account of the absence of the consent of the Advocate-General. It may be mentioned that in that case the suit was for a declaration that the property in dispute belongs to the general public and for eviction of the defendant from the same and for a permanent inj