The main legal point established in the judgment is that the suspension of a temple archaka without notice may be justified as incidental to the trustee's right to enquire into and punish the archaka for any offence committed.

1. The plaintiff in this suit was an archaka in the great Vishnu temple of Srirangam. He instituted the suit against the managers of the temple for the cancellation of an order of suspension passed against him by the managers and to recover damages alleged to have bean sustained by him and the value of perquisites which he would have earned if the suspension had not taken place. The only question for decision in this second appeal is whether the suspension which is found to have been otherwise justifiable in the circumstances was illegal on the ground that no notice was given to the plaintiff to show cause against it before the order was passed. The District Judge held it to be illegal on the authority of certain observations contained in Seshadri Ayyangar v. Nataraja Ayyar I.L.R. (1898) Mad. 179, It may be stated that at the enquiry held after the suspension the plaintiff was found by the managers to be guilty of the offences complained of against him and he was suspended from office for a term by way of punishment. These offences were that he committed theft and concealed property belonging to the idol, while engaged in the performance of his duties as archaka. We are of opinion that the decision of the District Judge is not correct and that the order of suspension cannot be hold to be invalid on the mere ground of absence of notice. According to the view taken by this Court a hereditary archaka like the plaintiff could be dismissed by the trustee but only for good reasons which are liable to examination by a Court of Justice, See Kristnasamy Tatacharry v. Gomatum Rungacharry (1868) 4 Mad. H.C.R. 63 and with regard to the dismissal of a trustee Seshadri Ayyangar v. Nataraja Ayyar I.L.R. (1898) Mad. 179, where the earlier oases are cited and examined. A different rule has do doubt been recently laid down in the Bombay High Court in Bhavani Shanhar v. Timmanna I.L.R. (1906) Bom. 508 by JENKINS, C.J., and Batty, J., where these learned Judges held that the bond fide dismissal of a maktesar by a devasthanam committee could not be reviewed by a civil Court. As the correctness of the decision in Kristnasamy Tatacharry v. Gomatum Rungacharry (1868) 4 Mad. H.C.R. 63 has not been impugned before us, we accept it as sound for the purposes of this case. The plaintiff is entitled to hold the office during his lifetime and cm his death his heirs are entitled to succeed him. The order of suspension we have to deal with, is one not passed as a punishment on the plaintiff for an offence of which he was found guilty but an ad interim order preventing him from performing his office pending the investigation of the charges of misconduct made against him. The suspension complained of in Seshadri Ayyanyar v. Nataraja Ayyar I.L.R. (1898) Mad. 179 was also a similar order. That case was, however, in other respects very different from the present one. The temple committee who passed the order in that; case was a statutory body whose powers had to be determined by the interpretation of the provisions of Act XX of 1863. The question was whether the right of superintendence vested in them by that Act included the right to suspend a trustee. There is certainly authority for the position that a statutory power of dismissal which, according to the decisions, a temple committee possesses does not necessarily include the right to suspend as a punitive measure. [See American Cyclopaedia of Law and Procedure, article" "Officers," vol. 29, page 1405 and Barton v. Taylor (1896) L.R. 11 A.C. 197 The decision of the majority of the Judges in that case proceeded largely on the ground that the result of a suspension might be to create a temporary vacancy in the office of trustee without provision for any one in whom the management of the temple could vest for the time being. The trustee was not a servant of the committee which possessed only the power of supervision over him, conferred on it by statute. The position of an archaka on the other hand, though