The main legal point established in the judgment is that trust property belonging to Hindu religious institutions is not vested in the manager or trustee, and therefore, Article 134 of the Limitation Act is not applicable.

Phillips, J.

1. The plaintiff in this case is the Manager of the Piranmalai Devasthanam and he sues to recover rent in respect of certain lands belonging to the Devasthanam which were granted on a permanent lease at a favourable rent by one of his predecessors. The Lower Appellate Court has held that the suit is barred by limitation because the starting point of limitation under Article 134 is the date of the transfer which in the present case was more than 12 years before suit. He has come to this conclusion on the ground that the lease was void ab initio as the trustee of the Devasthanam had do right to grant a permanent lease of the trust properties and that therefore the period started from the date of the lease. The appeal was also opposed by the respondent on the ground that the lease was justifiable under Section 26 of the Estates Land Act, that is to say, because it was a lease granted for the purpose of bringing waste land into cultivation. Although the lease recites that this land was overgrown, that the irrigation source was out of repair and that the land was uneven, it does not appear that the land was waste land within the meaning of Section 26. I agree with the District Judge that " bringing into cultivation " means cultivating land which had not previously been cultivated or at any rate had not been cultivated for a long period. The mere fact that land lies fallow for one, two or even four years cannot constitute it as waste land within the meaning of that section. Otherwise land lying fallow for even one year would come within the definition.

2. The main question is whether the suit is barred by limitation. The Lower Appellate Court has held that the permanent lease being invalid must be deemed to have been invalid from the date of the alienation and that therefore the limitation period must be calculated from that date, the possession of the lease being adverse from that date. In this conclusion I think the District Judge is clearly wrong. The point was decided in Makomed v. Ganapati (1889) ILR 13 M 277. in a case precisely analogous to the present and it was there held that the period of limitation ran not from the date of the permanent lease but from the date of the accession of the plaintiff trustee to his office. This was followed in Sathianamma Bharati v. Saravanabagi Ammal (1894) ILR 18 M 266 : 4 MLJ 223. In Vidya Varuthi v. Baluswami Aiyar (1921) ILR 44 M 831 : 41 MLJ 346 (PC). the same point was decided with reference to a Mutt and a Matadhipathi or Pandarasannadhi of that Mutt. Although in that case the religious institution in question was a mutt, a perusal of the judgment shows clearly that their Lordships draw no distinction between a mutt as such and other Hindu religious institutions. The two cases I have cited above are referred to in their Lordships judgment and referred to with approval. The basis of the decision is that ordinarily trust property belonging to Hindu religious institutions is not vested in the so-called trustee who is not in the position of an express trustee as understood in English law. As the property does not vest in him Article 134 of the Limitation Act is not applicable because the property has not been conveyed or bequeathed in trust and afterwards transferred by the trustee, as the manager of the institution is not a trustee within the meaning of the Article. That this is the view taken by their Lordships is, I think, clear from the passage in the judgment at page 847: " From the above review of the general law relating to Hindu and Muhammadan pious institutions, it would prima facie follow that an alienation by a manager or superior, by whatever name called, cannot be treated as the act of a trustee to whom property has been conveyed in trust and who by virtue thereof has the capacity vested in him which is possessed by a trustee in the English Law."

3. For the respondent it is urged that Vidya Varuthi v. Baluswami Aiyar (1921) ILR 44 M 831 : 41 MLJ 346 (PC).